The Ministry of the Interior considers that the increase in crimes against sexual freedom is due to an increase in social awareness and does not mention the application of the Organic Law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom known as the law of only yes is yes, which entered into force on October 7 and was reformed in 2023 at the initiative of the PSOE.

According to the crime balance of the Ministry of the Interior corresponding to the first quarter of 2023, crimes against sexual freedom continue to increase (excluding those computed online).. Specifically, from January to March 2023, there has been an increase of 16.9% over the same period of the previous year..

In total, during this period, 4,303 complaints of sexual crimes were registered. Of these, 1,021 were due to sexual assault with penetration (rape), which grew by 3.8% compared to the same period in 2022.. In addition, 3,282 complaints have been registered for the rest of crimes against sexual freedom, which represents an increase of 21.6%.

For the Interior, the increase in this type of crime must be “in part” in relation to the “active policies to raise awareness and reduce social and personal tolerance towards this type of criminal act”, which, according to what he assures, is translates into a “greater willingness” of the victims to report them and place their cases in the hands of the Security Forces and Corps, thus reducing the levels of “underreporting” that could and may exist in relation to these criminal types.

In its explanation, Interior does not make any mention of the application of the law of only yes is yes promoted by the Ministry of Equality, approved by the Government and whose complete original wording was in force between October 7, 2022 and December 28. April 2023. The controversial norm, which has given rise to more than 1,000 reductions in sentences and more than a hundred releases of aggressors, was reformed to once again raise the criminal rates when there is violence or intimidation at the initiative of the PSOE, a change agreed with the PP and rejected by Unidas Podemos and parliamentary partners such as ERC and Bildu.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, affirmed last June that “the most important mistake” that he has made during this legislature is the reduction of sentences for sexual offenders as a result of the law of only yes is yes. However, he also specified that the dismissal of the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, was “never” on the table.

A 9-year-old girl died this Wednesday after drowning on the Coma beach in Castelló d'Empúries (Girona) this Saturday, Civil Protection has reported in a statement.

The minor was admitted in critical condition at the Josep Trueta Hospital in Girona after being rescued with her six-year-old sister, who was in a less serious condition.

According to Civil Protection, the beach did not have a surveillance service, and two units of the Medical Emergency System (SEM), a helicopter and lifeguards from neighboring beaches attended the scene.

The Civil Guard has dealt a major blow to heroin trafficking in Madrid's Cañada Real Galiana with the dismantling this Wednesday of three clans dedicated to the sale of all kinds of narcotic substances, an operation that has resulted in 21 arrests and 18 searches practiced.

In the homes and bunkers of those investigated, the agents seized more than 300 grams of heroin, 200 grams of cocaine, two marijuana plantations with nearly 1,000 plants, 62 kilos of buds, four short weapons, a shotgun, cash and nine high-end vehicles, the General Directorate of the Civil Guard has informed.

The origin of the investigation dates back to the beginning of this year, when an increase in the movement of buyers of narcotic substances was detected in the surroundings of Cañada Real Galiana, specifically in sector VI. Thus, the Civil Guard decided to establish surveillance devices that allowed the agents to identify the members of three different clans.

These organizations were not only engaged in the distribution of numerous narcotic substances, but had also installed marijuana crops inside several of their homes..

Children to “give the water”

The investigation was complex due to the extreme security measures adopted by the members of these clans.

In addition to changing mobile phones on a regular basis, they used children and women from their surroundings to “give the water” (alert of possible police presence) when they were going to carry out an important transaction. They also used minors to conceal the drug.

The investigators managed to identify all the suspects, who were integrated into a strong structure led by a married couple..

His two sons were in a lower echelon and were in charge of supplying, mainly heroin, to the traffickers in the area.. Likewise, the Civil Guard was able to arrest its supplier, an acquaintance of the Security Forces and Corps, as well as his collaborators.

“Smoking rooms” for customers

In the seven houses where they distributed the drug, the members of the network had set up various “smoking rooms”, rooms where they allowed their clients to consume the narcotic substances they had been supplied with.

After the operation, these buildings will be demolished this Wednesday, explains the Civil Guard.

The footballer Dani Alves has argued this Wednesday before the judge that he is not satisfied with his prosecution for the alleged rape of a young woman at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona, but he will not appeal it because he wants to “expedite” the process and arrive at trial as soon as possible.

Alves has appeared today for about a quarter of an hour before the head of the Investigating Court Number 15 of Barcelona, which has informed him of his prosecution for a crime of sexual assault with carnal access and has given him the opportunity to testify for the last time, before sending the case to trial.

According to legal sources, the Brazilian international, who has been transferred to the courts from the Brians 2 prison, where he has been held since last January, has held a brief demonstration to announce that he is not “satisfied” with the facts that attributed to him in the indictment, but that he does not intend to appeal it because he is interested in going to trial as soon as possible.

In fact, the indictment will be declared final in a few days, since neither party intends to appeal, so the process will be opened for the accusations to present their writings, outlining the crimes that they attribute to Alves and the penalty that they ask for them, and the case will be sent to the Court of Barcelona to set a date and room for the trial.

In a statement sent to the media after the appearance, the Cristóbal Martell law firm, which is in charge of Alves' defense, has specified that the footballer has expressed his “disagreement” with the account of the facts of the indictment, because in his seem “does not fit the reality of what happened”.

“The indictment is a necessary step for the referral of the case to the prosecuting judicial body and, in fact, the defense had requested it for the same purposes of expediting,” added the statement from Martell Abogados.

Alves has been in provisional prison for half a year, after being arrested by the Mossos d'Esquadra for allegedly raping a 23-year-old girl in the bathroom of a private room at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona on the night of December 30.

Last Monday, the investigating magistrate concluded the investigation of the case and issued an indictment against Alves for a crime of sexual assault with carnal access, in addition to imposing a bail of 150,000 euros to cover eventual compensation for the victim in case of sentence.

In the car, the judge, who gives total credibility to the complainant's version, maintains that Alves took the victim to a bathroom in the disco's private room and, once there, he raised her dress, made her sit on it and threw her to the ground to try to get her to perform fellatio, to which the young woman refused.

The girl's rejection “enraged the footballer”, adds the magistrate, for which he gave her “several slaps in the face”, turned her on her back, rubbed his penis against her body and penetrated her “violently”..

For his part, the former FC Barcelona player has offered up to four different versions of what happened in the bathroom of the nightclub during the investigation of the case..

After his arrest, last January, he initially maintained that he did not know the victim, then admitted that he met the young woman in the nightclub's bathroom without anything happening between them and, finally, when the judge confronted his explanations with the biological evidence, he maintained that the girl had performed fellatio on him, consensually.

Last April, when the results of the biological tests that found traces of Alves' semen in the victim's private parts were already known, the footballer returned to testify before the instructor at his own request..

In that appearance, he admitted for the first time that he had had consensual sexual intercourse with the victim vaginally, and argued that on the first occasion he had lied to hide his infidelity from his wife..

Where we live and what our environment is like influences the direction of the vote.

The Popular Party, which took 33.1% of the votes on the day of 23-J, shot up in the census sections with the highest income in the country. Meanwhile, its worst results occur in the most impoverished areas. Unlike Vox, which is where it garnered its highest percentage of votes, almost three points more than in the national total..

The performance of those from Abascal declines as wealth increases, except in the richest segment, where it rebounds, although with less intensity than the popular ones. The inverse behavior presents Add. Those of Yolanda Díaz plummet seven points compared to their result in all of Spain in the richest segment.

For their part, the Socialists, who closed election night with 31.7% of the votes, are the favorites in the lower-income areas of the country. By ideological blocks, the left is in the majority in the poorest 10% and the right shoots up in the richest 10%.

The most impoverished areas, in general, correlate with those with the largest unemployed population. Also with those in which fewer have higher education. Regarding the direction of their votes, they show a behavior similar to the income cross, although in this case the blocks are more balanced and only diverge at the extremes..

By parties, PSOE and Sumar show opposite trends as the numbers of unemployed grow. Those of Sánchez received more ballots, rebounding in the last decile, while Díaz's training had better results where the employee data was more positive.

In this case, the percentage of votes for the rest of the formations —among which are Junts, ERC, PNV or EH Bildu— grows in the regions with the lowest numbers of unemployed. Many of these regions are located in the Basque Country, Navarra and Catalonia, where the nationalist or independence vote is gaining strength.

This is attenuated in the comparison with the proportion of people with higher education, where the vote for these parties falls slightly, which coincides with the census data published by the National Institute of Statistics: in many sections of the Basque communities and Navarre, in particular, Vocational Training takes on equal or greater prominence than university studies.

Age is another determining factor.. Whether you look at the average age of the census section or the percentage of people over 65, the conclusion is the same: the oldest areas were more prone to right-wing votes, but so were the youngest.

By matches, those of Núñez Feijóo had a better reception in areas with a higher average age, above 51.2 years, while the far-right formation obtained better results in the younger territories, below 38 ,7 years. And the formations that aspire to re-edit the coalition government had more support where the average age was between 43.3 and 45.6 years. Where more people born abroad live, the sum of PSOE and Sumar is close to 50% of the votes. At the other extreme, the Socialists were also the most voted in areas with less immigration.

Vox, who includes various anti-immigration measures in its program, shows few oscillations in this regard: its ballots were chosen in the same proportion, with almost no influence on the number of people not born in Spain.. The Popular Party is the only one that was losing votes as the percentage of people born abroad grew.

Methodology

The State will have to indemnify the ex-counselor of the Philatelic Forum Francisco López Gilarte with 20,000 euros. The Prosecutor's Office even requested 15 years in prison for him for his alleged participation in “the biggest fraud in the history of Spain”, but after being acquitted of all crimes in 2018, the National Court sets this compensation for the damage caused. According to sources from his defense, López Gilarte will now appeal the sentence before the Supreme Court so that the final compensation exceeds 3.6 million euros.

The former director of the Philatelic Forum denounces for this an “abnormal operation of the Administration of Justice” and points to four reasons: the 71 days that he spent in provisional prison, the delays suffered by the investigation, the repercussions that it caused in his patrimony and the ” moral damage”.

The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who was then acting as a magistrate of the National Court, agreed to the provisional detention of López Gilarte a day later: “Not only for being part of the board of directors of Fórum Filatélico SA, but also for participating in direct commercial management that necessarily implies knowledge of the product and its characteristics”, he warned in his resolution. “Within the criminal plot, significant contributions were obtained from clients to whom they delivered lots of highly overvalued stamps”.

That decision kept the former counselor behind bars until July 21, 2006, when it was agreed to release him on bail of 60,000 euros and on the condition that he appear before the court periodically. The investigators maintained their thesis that he was one of the main perpetrators of the pyramid scheme and, more than 10 years later, López Gilarte ended up sitting on the bench of the National Court as a defendant: the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor requested 15 years in prison for him for the crimes of continued aggravated fraud, punishable insolvency and continued falsification of company accounts.

The number of those affected by the pyramid scheme already exceeded 269,000 people. Between 2000 and 2005 alone, the massive fundraising had reached 11,200 million, and the Prosecutor's Office placed López Gilarte in the third step of the plot, just behind the president himself, Francisco Briones, for whom he claimed 27 years prison, and the director general, Antonio Merino, who was facing 16 other. The prosecutor ended up lowering his indictment in the final stretch of the trial and managed to get the latter two convicted, but in the case of López Gilarte, the National Court agreed to his acquittal on July 13, 2018..

The magistrates highlighted that the counselor himself had invested more than 67,000 euros in the company and limited his decision-making power: “It is necessary to show the reserve with which accounting manipulations were made, which is inferred from some internal messages”. “It has not been proven that they were aware of the pyramidal nature of the Forum or that the value of the stamps did not respond to the lists made by the president or to the money invested by clients”.

The Supreme Court confirmed the acquittal of López Gilarte in March 2020. After more than a decade defending himself, the counselor then decided to go on the attack and the National Court has just agreed with him: “Recognize in favor of the plaintiff a total compensation of 20,000 euros”, the magistrates agree in a sentence of June 29 to which El Confidencial has had access. López Gilarte will now appeal to the Supreme Court and trusts that it will agree with him again. This time, to settle accounts.

Manuel Azaña warned that in Madrid it was very dangerous to spout nonsense because they took root more than the acacias of the Retiro. And if that was said in the twenties of the last century, when Spanish politics was brimming with culture and knowledge, we can imagine what it will be like today when the illiterate have taken over the public scene, fascinating a mass of falsely literate people who repeat at face value the atrocities that are constantly launched by opinion makers, media figures and wise men of any kind.

To verify this, an example is enough.. It is said with resounding self-confidence that we Spaniards directly elect our rulers at the polls. That the elections give the majority to govern and that, consequently, not respecting the list with the most votes means betraying the popular will and attacking democracy itself. Well no, big mistake, or at least that is not the idea of democracy that informs our Constitution, no matter how much it is the remedy indicated by the Loreg to guarantee the governability of the municipalities when there is no other remedy (art.. 196.3 C)1, that is, when there is no way to forge a majority consensus and it is not possible to resort to the automatic dissolution provided for in art.. And it is not because in our constitutional model democracy is based on consensus and not majority, not even relative. In the Spanish democratic regime, consensus is the rule and not the exception, because the relative majority government, which is used as the last extreme, is by default and only results from the impossibility of reaching a majority consensus (art.99.3 CE ). In a democracy, there is never abandonment of what is public, even if its management is entrusted to representatives, because political action is always something collective. Democracy and its government go far beyond elections, as confirmed by the magnificent book by Achen and Bartles Democracy for Realists (2016).. This also implies that there are different structural models of democracy depending on the different national political cultures, ours being a democracy of consensus, and I repeat it, because this is precisely what threatens to disintegrate in Spain.

In a consensus democracy, elections are a parliamentary photograph destined to reflect the political feeling of society and never —unless there is a majority as absolute as that of 1982 and not even then completely— they generate a direct mandate to govern regardless of the constitutional minority, which is the one that moves within the framework of the Constitution. Elections allow us to know what society thinks and entail a mandate to reach agreements. This is an unavoidable responsibility for the chosen ones, something that is often forgotten in Spain. But to agree does not mean to decide. In the consensus, a new will is agreed and built that integrates all the existing ones that temporarily renounce their belief to integrate into another in which they participate relatively.

On the contrary, to decide is to impose the criterion that arises from the arithmetic sum of votes. In our democracy, consensus is reached when organic laws are approved (art.. 81.2 CE), magistrates of the Constitutional Court are elected (art.. 159.1 CE) or members of the Council of the Judiciary (aart. 122.3 CE) and in general on all those occasions when something transcendental is discussed. In our democracy, you cannot govern without agreeing to a greater or lesser degree with the parties of the constitutional arc, which are those that maintain their loyalty to the Constitution. It is one of the structural characteristics of the Spanish Constitution that forge its democratic identity.

This rule of consensus governed our political life from the Transition to the beginning of the century, incurring —it is true— in an important vice: its formalization and substantial emptying, which determined that with the passage of time the simulation took over from the debate of the content, allowing the logic of power to prevail over the logic of politics. The progressive slide down the path of a simulation reinforced by virtual technique led to the near collapse of our democratic model when an earthquake blew everything up.. The 2008 financial crisis hit the traditional parties, punishing them in direct proportion to their exposure to consensus (starting with Convergence) and gave rise to new extra- or intra-system renewal forces, with which the surviving parties at the national level tried to reach a consensus.. It was not an easy task because characters like Rivera showed that they had not understood anything. But the most serious thing occurred when, following the precedent set by President Zapatero in the frustrated reform of the Catalan statute, the Socialist Party built its consensus outside the constitutional framework, while the popular ones proved incapable of breaking that dynamic by offering consensus in the communities autonomous that dominated.

The result was a democratic anomy: the governmental consensus was obtained outside the constitutional arch, that is, with the supporters of destroying the Constitution and replacing its definitions.. A supine exercise in democratic ignorance that also ideologically contaminated a PSOE that, more than a political project, was already a power structure.. This unconstitutional contamination and this tyranny of a minority that decides and imposes its (minority) political postulates is precisely what the Spaniards just rejected at the polls in July, mobilized, some, by the fear of independence and, others, by the threat What does Vox represent?. And the question we are facing consists of determining whether after July 23 the two parties with a relative majority are going to continue organizing their consensus outside the constitutional framework or, on the contrary, they will finally understand that they are chosen to reach consensus from the Constitution and with the Constitution, whatever measures are necessary. To do this, they have to do two things: rearm intellectually and determine which are the points that require consensual reforms.. Proceeding otherwise will place our democracy on the path to the abyss, at a time when stability does not come from Europe, but very uncertain mists.

*Eloy Garcia. Professor of Constitutional Law.

1It says 196.1.c. “If none of them obtains said majority, the councilor who heads the list that has obtained the greatest number of popular votes in the corresponding municipality is proclaimed mayor. In the event of a tie, it will be resolved by lottery. Illustrative for our purposes is the last random mention, it is about finding a remedy for ungovernability.

The government options after the highly fragmented electoral result are so complex and unsatisfactory that the business and financial elite have begun to put on the table the option of going down the middle street and looking for a Draghi. A white blackbird, or a white blackbird, neutral and of recognized competence on whom everyone agrees, as they did in Italy. But in Spain the Draghi option cannot and should not happen.

Personally, I admire Draghi. But finding a person like him (who has managed to make a technocratic career at a very high level and with an international projection in a relatively neutral way) is almost an impossible mission in a system as closed as ours.. In Spain, neutrality is a chimera, because bipartisanship has invaded practically everything and in order to have a stellar technocratic career, the robust sponsorship of one of the two great political parties is almost always needed.. All you have to do is take a look at the senior Spanish positions in the Administration, the European Union or in international organizations. Almost everyone falls on the side of one block or the other.

Let's imagine for a moment that we overcome that first hurdle and find the right person. It would be necessary to obtain its acceptance by the political forces. And here comes the second difficulty: we do not have a Mattarella, a figure like the President of the Italian Republic who, with his (crucial) democratic credibility and acceptance by all parties, mediates with intelligence, determination and a lot of left hand so that everyone agree. Regardless of whether one is a monarchist or a republican (both options have pros and cons), the reality is that in Spain we have a monarchy that, due to its own mistakes and those of others, is caught with pins and, therefore, has little or no room for maneuver to forge agreements. As an example, a button: when in 2019 there was the possibility of a reformist government between the PSOE and Ciudadanos, which surely would have changed the future of the country, our Head of State was unable to force that agreement. If that (which ran aground due to personal disagreements, but which was something relatively simple, because there were only two parties and they had made a previous agreement) could not be done then by the Head of State, what hope is there now that they can mediate an agreement? much more sui generis, with more parts and much more difficulty?

But even if it were possible to get everyone to agree, the Draghi formula is something that completely clashes with the most basic principles of democracy.. In Spain, the presidents of the Government are not appointed by the political, financial or business elite through the back door, the people vote for them. Sovereign power rests with the Spanish people (thus, with a small p, article 1.2 of the Constitution). And the Spanish people have voted with the explicit premise that the party leaders were the ones running for president (and not a neutral person they didn't even know who they were when they voted).. A neutral person could be president of the Government with the support of one or several parties, but to be able to be, they must have an explicit electoral mandate.

The question is not trivial, because the collateral damage that the mere suggestion of the Draghi formula can cause is enormous.. If we are willing to accept contortions with the Constitution to explore a Draghi formula (which may be technically compatible with the Constitution, but not with its spirit), then we cannot complain when others contort with the Constitution looking for pro-independence formulas that, even if they violate the spirit of the Constitution are technically compatible with it. The Constitution is not a rubber band that stretches at the convenience of each one (neither at the convenience of the elites, nor at the convenience of the independentistas).

Rather than proposing formulas like Draghi's, the elite would do well to do what we are all doing: an examination of conscience to see where we have failed to have put our country in the difficult position it is in now. For many years, most of the business and financial elite have dedicated themselves not to promoting the reforms they know Spain needs, but to joining in with power. They did it to Sánchez during his early years until he stood up to them. And they were starting to do it to Feijóo even before winning the elections. Hopefully the current complicated situation will at least help everyone, including the elite, stop paying homage to power. And so that we become more seriously involved in the economic and political reforms that the country needs.

Morocco has been the common denominator of some of the great crises of the coalition government. Pedro Sánchez's swerve, which in March 2022 turned Spain's historical position with the Sahara by 180 degrees, generated significant friction and wear and tear between the PSOE, Unidas Podemos and their parliamentary allies. Also the controversy over the Pegasus case, with a harsh parliamentary offensive by the opposition. The neighboring country seemed a kind of taboo subject depending on the context. Especially now, in full negotiations for the investiture, but the acting president of the Executive took a new turn on Tuesday and appeared in Marrakech to spend his vacation.

The Moroccan official press also puffs up the fact that the President of the Government of Spain has chosen his country for his summer vacations. The first to break the news was Rue 20, a newspaper related to the security apparatus, and hours later all the press picked it up.. La Moncloa took hours to confirm the news of Rue 20. When he did, he turned to the EFE Agency to give his version, before answering El Confidencial, which had asked him the question..

Since Sánchez's appearance before the PSOE leadership, last Monday, to analyze the result of 23-J, it was assumed that he had settled in La Mareta, one of the official residences that he has the right to use, in Lanzarote. La Moncloa was silent until this Tuesday, when he denied that he had started his vacation and revealed that he has spent all this time in Madrid. His team had not clarified the details of these days of rest, much less his intention to spend a few days in Morocco.. They also did not want to confirm, for “security reasons”, that, as indicated by the Moroccan newspaper Kech 24, their stay will end in Tetouan, in the north of the country, very close to where Mohamed VI spends the summer..

Since 2012, no Spanish head of government had spent their summer vacation abroad, as indicated by the EFE Agency. Only Aznar and his family spent part of their Christmas vacation in Jerusalem in 1999.. The Moroccan authorities are very hospitable to first-rate politicians, as high-ranking officials and French deputies who have assiduously frequented that country well know.. In this case, Moncloa sources have specified that the expenses are fully borne by them. They also traveled on a regular flight.

symbolic message

With his family trip to Marrakech, Sánchez boasts of his relationship with Morocco, which has earned him so much criticism from the right-wing opposition and arouses so much suspicion in his partners to the left of the PSOE, starting with Sumar, Podemos or IU, Solidarity with the Saharawi cause. All this, just over two weeks before the constitutive session of the Cortes Generales, scheduled for August 17, and with the negotiations on the presidency of Congress and his investiture underway..

The turn with the Sahara, which the head of the Executive recognized and then began to deny, while pointing out the decrease in irregular immigration, led the already former second vice president Pablo Iglesias to affirm that “there is nothing more imprudent than trusting” Sánchez. His successor as vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, then maintained that the PSOE was acting “incoherently” and “opaquely”.. In April of this year, she added that Morocco is a “dictatorship”, and that, if she became president, she would “return to the previous position of Spain with the Sahara”..

Díaz, whose number three in Congress is the Saharawi activist Tesh Sidi, and his number two is the last Spanish ambassador to the UN, Agustín Santos Maraver, places him in a difficult position.. Partners such as ERC, EH Bildu or the BNG demanded that Sánchez reverse this swerve. And, at the summit of the Executive in Morocco, in February of this year, Esquerra and Bildu made ugly their “betrayals” of the Sahara, but also that their support for Rabat has generated “several problems for Spain”.

The parties that managed to park scandals such as espionage with the Pegasus software have not stopped reproaching him for this historical turn, difficult to understand even for grassroots socialist voters. And to this is added the tragedy that occurred at the Melilla fence in June 2022, when 37 migrants (according to Amnesty International) lost their lives at the hands of the Moroccan police when trying to enter Spain.. A chapter that has persecuted the Government, has politically burned the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and that the UN Committee against Torture has asked to investigate.

without compensation

Deep down, Sánchez does not have many reasons to be satisfied with the relationship established with Morocco as of March 2022, when he sent the letter to Mohamed VI, aligning himself with the solution that Rabat has been advocating since 2007 to resolve the Sahara conflict. Occidental: an autonomy plan that would circumvent the self-determination referendum of the Sahrawis.

With this letter, the president put an end to a long bilateral crisis unleashed by the Moroccan authorities on December 10, 2020, long before the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, was received in La Rioja to be cured of covid-19.. Hostilities began just as President Donald Trump recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara.

In exchange for this swerve in Spanish foreign policy, the president has obtained few counterparts. The main one, which he himself announced on April 7 at the end of an iftar (Ramadan dinner) with Mohamed VI, has not been fulfilled.. The president then assured that the commercial customs of Melilla with Morocco, closed unilaterally by Rabat five years ago today, would be reopened, and one would be inaugurated in Ceuta. Spaniards who cross into Morocco through these borders are also subjected to degrading treatment by Moroccan agents, who do not apply the so-called traveler regime, which allows them to carry gifts for a small amount.

Nor have there been any advances in the talks to delimit the waters on the Atlantic coast, between the Canary Islands and Morocco, or to improve the coordination of the Western Sahara airspace, which is managed —with the exception of military flights— from the tower of Las Palmas airport control. Rabat wants the Spanish government to transfer control of that airspace to it.

Until now, the main success of the reconciliation with Morocco was the drop in irregular immigration by sea to Spain, especially that which reached the Canary Islands.. In recent weeks, there has been a change in trend and the arrival of people without papers is on the rise, although it is not always the responsibility of the neighboring country. More canoes also leave Senegal for the Canary Islands.

In the first seven months of this year, 15,603 irregular immigrants have landed on the Spanish coast, 4% more than during the same period last year, according to the website of the Ministry of the Interior, whose information is deliberately opaque to make it difficult to analyze migratory flows. 32% more arrived on the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands and on the Canary Islands, 11.3% less. Immigration by land to Ceuta and Melilla also decreased.