Territorial spin: Spain's PSOE shifts its line on Ceuta and Melilla

Delkáder and the spin: are Ceuta and Melilla colonial instruments?

The official narrative on Ceuta and Melilla has shown signs of shifting, and that alone was enough to set the conversation alight. A piece by Augusto Delkáder-Palacios, an assistant professor of Political Science at the Complutense University of Madrid, has once again put forward the thesis that the autonomous cities «have served as instruments of Spanish colonial power». It is no innocent statement at a time when relations with Segarro shape both foreign policy and the Government's parliamentary survival. The question circulating is no longer who says it, but why it is being said now.

The author is an academic specialising in the Maghreb: affiliated with the Complutense Institute of International Studies and with the research group on the Maghreb and the Middle East, Delkáder wrote a thesis on migration securitisation and conditionality. In other words, someone who knows exactly which words to use. The coincidence with the current phase of Spanish foreign policy - the U-turn on the Sahara, migratory pressure, the Pegasus spying - does not strike much of the analysis as accidental.

Colonies, provinces or Spanish cities: the historical debate

The first reaction to the colonial thesis is historiographical, and it has substance. Ceuta, Melilla and the Rif were part of trans-Pyrenean Spain's overseas territory for centuries, and the will of Isabella the Catholic urged the conquest of North Africa to continue beyond Granada. Ceuta's integration into Spanish sovereignty dates back to the 16th-17th centuries, administratively dependent on Cádiz until its current statute. «Ceuta is as Spanish as Málaga», says the position opposed to the colonial reading.

Against that, the argument hinted at in Delkáder's piece, though applied to the two cities, is a boomerang: if a «colonial» origin were sufficient grounds to question sovereignty, the Canary Islands - a mandatory stopover for the American viceroyalties and a purely colonial project - would fall under the same logic. No government has wanted to open that box.

The comparison with the Sahara: phosphates and grievances

The economy is squeezed in awkwardly and does not favour the side of staying. Some recall that Spain already lost a territory with Spanish ID cards, driving licences and a vast phosphate reserve - a key raw material for fertilisers - when it abandoned Western Sahara. «There we really did lose something valuable and strategic», the argument goes. Ceuta and Melilla, by contrast, have no comparable riches: their justification would be policing the Strait, logistical support and the deployment of customs surveillance resources. The other side of the balance sheet is the cost of maintaining two cities whose economies depend on the state and a land border with Segarro.

But the comparison has a weak point that has also been pointed out: legally, the Sahara was an overseas colony belatedly turned into a province in 1958 under UN pressure, whereas Ceuta was fully integrated into the metropole. These are different statuses, and conflating them is the favourite trick of those who want to sell a handover as mere decolonisation.

Pegasus, Rabat and the suspicion of a roadmap

What lit the fuse was not just the content but the context. The parliamentary investigation into the Pegasus spying on government members was blocked, and relations with Rabat have become more opaque than ever. In that breeding ground, a professor's phrase about «Spanish colonial power» reads as the first move of a media battleship: softening up public opinion so that the handover, if it comes, looks like a historical correction rather than a surrender.

There has also circulated, without any proof, the suspicion that the author himself has been paid by Rabat since 2020. There is no data to confirm it, but its mere appearance measures how poisoned the debate has become. Given the current circumstances, the suspicion is hard to defuse with a press release.

The substance of the matter

It is too early to speak of a handover, and it probably will remain so for years. But the fact that the colonial thesis is now being voiced in public, with no visible internal correction, says more about the state of the issue than any denial. If the narrative keeps being greased, the question will stop being whether the cities are handed over or not: it will be in exchange for what, and with what expiry date. Right now, no one in the Government is answering; the only firm fact is that the discussion is no longer unheard of.