The Diplomat
The spokesperson for the People’s Parliamentary Group in the Congress, Miguel Tellado, yesterday demanded that the Government deploy the Armed Forces to put an end to the arrival of migrants to the Spanish coasts, mainly to the Canary Islands.
“The Government can use the Armed Forces to defend our borders and prevent the arrival of cayucos (canoes) to Spain,” declared Tellado during an interview on the program ‘Espejo Público’, on Antena 3. In that sense, he continued, the Government should mobilize “a series of boats” so that the cayucos that “put the lives at risk” of thousands of migrants cannot go out to sea “so that they finally reach” the borders.
Furthermore, Tellado insisted that the European Commission “has to get involved in the problem”, since “we are a country that is part of the EU and we are on the border of Europe”, in line with the request made this past Wednesday by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to the elected president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen. “We have to support the Canary Islands in the face of an international migration crisis and we have to ask the European Commission for help,” he added.
According to the PP spokesperson, the “increase in irregular immigrants in Spain in recent years and especially in recent times” is due to the abandonment of functions of the Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which he has asked to “do its job and seek an agreement between all the autonomous autonomous communities.”
Likewise, he asked that “the principle of interterritorial solidarity with which minors are cared for in the Canary Islands not be broken” and described, in this sense, as “nonsense” Junts’ request to exclude Catalonia from the distribution of minors that They arrive in the Canary Islands. The requests of Carles Puigdemont’s party, he added, are “indefensible in political, legal and also humanitarian terms.”
This Wednesday, Alberto Núñez Feijóo asked the Twenty-Seven for help to solve the migration problem that Spain is currently experiencing, which he described as a “limiting situation”, and accused the Government of “arriving very late” to the problem. In his opinion, the problem of unaccompanied minors is “the tip of the iceberg” and is part of a debate that “has been postponed for months.” Feijóo also warned of the “call effect” generated by the lack of measures to stop the massive arrival of migrants to the Spanish coasts, in comparison with the “successful” decisions of other EU States.
Response from Margarita Robles
In response, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, asked Miguel Tellado and the PP, “who boast of being a state party and who even had government responsibilities,” to “have a minimum of responsibility, to know the current legislation.” and that they have respect for the Spanish Armed Forces.”
In statements to the press after participating in a videoconference with the Spanish contingents on international missions, Robles recalled that “article 8 of the Constitution” establishes that the Armed Forces have the function of “defending the peace, freedom and security of Spain,” and, therefore, “they are not up to what they ask for.”
For his part, the PSOE spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, asked himself after learning of Tello’s proposal: “What next, bomb them so they don’t arrive?” Likewise, Íñigo Errejón, from Sumar, accused the PP of “buying Le Pen’s theses” and the leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, accused Tello of aspiring to be “the racist of the year.” The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, declared that it is “a scam” that the PP is now demanding the use of warships against immigration after having supported “massive regularization.”
Given the controversy generated by his words, Tello later ratified his proposal in the halls of Congress. “I am not saying anything barbaric, any nonsense, because in fact the Sánchez Government has already done it in the summer of 2023 or in the summer of 2022: send patrol boats or maritime action vessels to the areas where the mafias traffic people” , he declared.
