A fierce confrontation erupted in Spain’s Parliament after a leading opposition figure accused Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of betraying the country over his government’s response to a surge of migrants entering the North African enclave of Ceuta.
Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s right-wing Vox party, used a parliamentary session to question whether Sánchez was under pressure or being politically blackmailed by Morocco as tensions mounted over the Ceuta border crisis.
In a blistering attack from the chamber floor, Abascal referred to Sánchez as both a “traitor” and “a dog.”
Vox leader Santiago Abascal and Vox parliamentary spokesperson Pepa Millan attended a plenary session at the Congress of Deputies in Madrid on Wednesday. During the exchange, Abascal displayed papers spelling out “traidor,” the Spanish word for “traitor,” as he targeted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. (Europa Press via Getty Images)
Sánchez fired back during the tense exchange, responding, “I may be a dog, but I have no master.”
Abascal then raised individual sheets of paper, one after another, to spell “Traidor” — Spanish for “Traitor” — before Sánchez returned to his seat.
The clash came as Spain faced growing public anger and major protests over migrant arrivals in Ceuta, with opponents of Sánchez blaming his administration for the situation and accusing him of yielding too much to Morocco.
Sánchez pushed back at Abascal’s insult, saying, “I may be a dog, but I have no master.” (Patrick van Katwijk/Getty Images)
More than 70,000 migrants poured into Ceuta in July. Most of them have returned to Morocco, but many remain in the enclave, with some living in tent encampments on the beach.
Meanwhile, Spain’s national intelligence agency issued multiple warnings before the mass crossing of migrants from Morocco into Ceuta in late July, according to declassified documents released by the government on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
On July 29, a day before people began crossing into Ceuta, the National Intelligence Center (CNI) sent an alert via WhatsApp to the Spanish government’s delegation in Ceuta about calls on social media “for an assault on the fence and by sea tomorrow at 8 p.m.”
“There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers,” the declassified WhatsApp message said, “just to give you an idea of its scale.”
