Spanish Defense Minister: Spanishness of Ceuta, Melilla Is ‘Non-Negotiable’

Rabat – Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said on Monday that the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla is ‘non-negotiable.’

The minister’s comment was a direct response to a statement from Morocco’s President of the House of Councillors Naam Miyara who stressed that the two cities are colonized and should be returned to Morocco through dialogue with Spain.

During an event organized by the Independence Party which he is a member of, Miyara said that his party believes that “a day will come when Morocco will regain the occupied cities of Ceuta and Melilla, not with weapons, but through dialogue and serious negotiations with neighboring Spain.”

Commenting on the statement, Robles said that “Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish like Zamora or Valencia, and there is nothing else that can be discussed on this subject.”

“I visited Ceuta and Melilla recently and I feel that I am from both cities, and they are very Spanish,” she added, stressing that “the position of the Spanish government is clear and strong, and there is no possibility to discuss this matter.”

The Ceuta and Melilla saga

Ceuta and Melilla were part of Morocco prior to Spanish colonization, and even after Morocco claimed its independence from Spain after World War II, the European country clung to the two enclaves and refused to hand them to the North African country.

The two cities are the last African territories under the direct control of a European country.

Over the years, there have been multiple calls to free the two cities and return them to Morocco. Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun describes Spain’s rules over the two cities as a “modern-day occupation” of Morocco.

In an interview with Spanish media in May 2021, Ben Jelloun stressed that “Ceuta has always been Moroccan land,” adding that it is “abnormal” for a European former colonizing power to occupy a country in this day and age.

Some Spanish politicians have also shown a break with Spain’s rhetoric over the two enclaves, with Former Spanish Minister of Housing Maria Antonia Trujillo declaring in September 2022 that Ceuta and Melilla are an “affront to Morocco’s territorial integrity.”

Trujillo maintained that the two cities represent “vestiges of the past” that interfere with contemporary Moroccan-Spanish relations.

“The Moroccan claim [over Ceuta and Melilla] is fully justified, as it is instilled in its national ideology and cannot be abandoned,” she said, calling for the two countries to initiate dialogue to resolve the issue.

The former minister’s statement sparked backlash in Spain, with several Spanish politicians contesting her stance and arguing that the two enclaves have long-standing “Spanishness.”

The two cities became part of Spain during the Spanish colonization of Morocco between 1912 to 1956.

Spokesperson of Trujillo’s socialist party in Spain’s Congress, Patxi Lopez, criticized her comments, saying that his party does not doubt the “Spanishness” of both cities.

The statements were equally rejected by the party’s branches in Ceuta and Melilla, and the governments of both cities who described the pro-Morocco stance as “disloyal” and argued that “the sovereignty and Spanishness of the two cities cannot be discussed or doubted.”