Feijóo urges Sánchez to authorize royal visit to Ceuta after border influx

Feijóo demands authorization for royal visit

In an interview published on 22 August 2026, Partido Popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo called on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to authorize a visit by King Felipe VI to Ceuta. Feijóo stated that the monarch wishes to travel to the autonomous city in his official capacity as head of state and guarantor of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. He described the local conditions as a combined humanitarian, public health, and public order crisis unmatched in recent Spanish history. According to the opposition leader, the central government has a constitutional obligation to permit and organize the head of state's travel to any Spanish territory experiencing an emergency of this scale.

I am convinced that the King wants to go to Ceuta and will do so when the Government of Spain authorizes that trip.

Audience at Marivent Palace and the July border influx

Feijóo pointed to an early August meeting held at Marivent Palace in Palma between King Felipe VI and the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas. During that audience, Vivas formally conveyed the city's invitation to the royal household, later stating that the monarch is prepared to travel as soon as the executive approves the trip. Feijóo connected the necessity of the royal visit directly to the border events of 30 and 31 July, when more than 70,000 people crossed into Ceuta. The PP leader stated that were he prime minister, he would formally announce a visit by the King, though he noted that setting a precise date requires comprehensive security and intelligence data that only the government holds.

Diplomatic precedents and Morocco policy

A royal visit to Ceuta remains a sensitive diplomatic matter between Madrid and Rabat. King Felipe VI has never visited Ceuta since his proclamation as monarch. Official visits by the Spanish Crown to the autonomous cities in North Africa have previously generated diplomatic friction with Morocco. When King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía visited Ceuta in 2007, the Moroccan government recalled its ambassador to Madrid for consultations. At the time, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero stated that the trip fulfilled a personal request from the King that the government agreed to accommodate. In his interview, Feijóo criticized Sánchez's foreign policy approach, arguing that Spain emerges weaker from the recent crisis.

His policy or his hidden diplomacy with Rabat has yielded this result of invasion of a Spanish territory.

Opposition calls on intelligence and Western Sahara

The Partido Popular continues to demand full disclosure regarding the information held by state security services prior to the border crossings on 30 July. Feijóo stated that authorities in Rabat either consented to or actively encouraged the movement of people across the border into Ceuta. He also addressed Spain's bilateral relations regarding Western Sahara, stating that his party will not consider itself bound by agreements negotiated without parliamentary oversight. Feijóo further criticized Sánchez for failing to summon political parties to agree on a joint declaration defending national integrity, following statements by the Moroccan justice minister questioning Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla.

I will not sign agreements whose content I do not know, nor will decisions that Congress did not vote on bind me.