It doesn't change over the years.

El Príncipe, a neighborhood with narrow streets, where it is impossible to orient yourself and illegal constructions follow one another and rise as many floors as each family has generations. Here it smells like cat piss, in the next corner, like weed; and beyond, to cous cous. Spanish and Arabic are intermingled in this neighborhood where

12,000 people

they are registered, although the calculations estimate that 20,000 live and where none of the parties that want to govern Ceuta have specific plans to solve their problems.

«The one from Vox calls us pro-Moroccans, but how can we be if many of us are children and grandchildren of soldiers, we have served Spain and our King? We do want the integrity of our territory, what pro-Moroccans or what nothing! “, he laments

Bachir Abdelslm Mohamed,

vice president of the Prince's Neighborhood Association, former soldier of the Regulares company and protector of journalists who visit the neighborhood, in charge of appeasing the distrustful glances of the boys who, standing still and without ambitions, watch the hours go by between joints and weapons in the square. And once presented by a sponsor and intoned the

Salam Aleikum,

you ask them how they are. The tumult and shouts are formed to express their complaints “to a Madrid newspaper”. Like the 36-year-old boy, with three children and a wife, who can't find a job: «Well, they call you to

take a trip to morocco

[for drugs] and what are we going to do? That we have to eat, ”he laments loudly.

Bachir and Fatima in The Prince

ANTONIO HEREDIA

Barely 29 kilometers separate the peninsula from Ceuta. The Spanish Autonomous City in North Africa, where the

42% of the population is Muslim,

It is a complicated point of the national geography despite its meager 18 square kilometers. First, because of its condition, halfway between a community and a city dependent on another autonomy; and, second, due to its geographical location:

a key point

in the passage of the Strait, which separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea and a historic piece of Spain that for years has been considered occupied territory by Morocco. And where he has governed for 22 years

Juan Jesus Vivas,

representative of the Popular Party, who sees his majority in danger due to the rise of Vox. Here the formation of

abascal

was the third force in the previous elections, obtaining 6 of the 27 representatives of the Assembly. But in the national elections held on November 10, 2019, the party was the most voted, accumulating 35% of the support of the citizens.

And with that electoral estimate they live their day to day

84,800 residents of Ceuta

. The streets of the center are practically deserted in the morning. Only gardeners -mostly Muslim women- are employed from early morning in taking care of the beautiful and abundant green areas of the last frontier of Europe, which lives under Moroccan blackmail. It was demonstrated two years ago, when

more than 12,000 immigrants

they crossed the border through the Tarajal beach under the permission of the authorities of

Mohamed VI

. Now immigration has dropped, in the last report 33 people had entered by sea and 343 by land as of May 15. But the threat is always there.

In fact,

Sanchez

He has made history by being the only president who has visited Ceuta and Melilla three times, something that would have caused a new jump in immigrants before. Vox calls the almost daily entry of undocumented

“the silent invasion”

, who has structured his campaign around the idea of ending

«The Moroccanization of Ceuta».

And the problem is that most Moroccans end up in El Príncipe. In the neighborhood there is a Catholic church and two mosques. Although now only Muslims live, until a few years ago some Christians still resided in the area: “The mistake was to kick them out and allow illegal immigrants to settle,” a journalist from Ceuta who was born in El Príncipe and who continues to go there tells EL MUNDO. Sunday mass there.

Due to the Moroccan threat, Ceuta is the city

with the highest density of military personnel per inhabitant

. The data on the number of members of the Armed Forces are secret so as not to inform the enemy, but around

3,000 soldiers

inhabit its streets, with representatives of the Legion, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineers, Logistics Unit…. They cannot speak, but Marco Antonio Gómez, a legionnaire who was stationed in the autonomous city for eight years and who now chairs the Troop and Sailor Association, assures EL MUNDO that fate is not good, which does not favor the establishment of those who pass through the city: “The dependence on the ship to cross the Strait has always been a handicap,” he explains. Also, as the strategic position of Ceuta requires that there be a fairly high minimum of soldiers always deployed so as not to be unprotected, “it is more difficult to request vacations and be able to reconcile,” he says.

Tour of the southern border of Europe

ANTONIO HEREDIA

Although all the officials posted here have 50 days of vacation, free boat tickets and even a residence allowance,

lack of housing

Because you can't build more in such a small territory, they make renting another problem: Idealista barely offers 30 apartments, all at exorbitant prices. And since higher education offers some Vocational Training courses, there is no university, so young people who can afford it are condemned to leave to study abroad.. Ceuta is, in fact, the city with

lower qualification rate.

According to the OECD, only 25% of the population between the ages of 25 and 64 have higher education or vocational training.

And there are not many plans to give a future to the young people of a city whose average age is 38.66 years, the second youngest in Spain behind Melilla. In addition to the youth of Ceuta, in the city it is normal to come across Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (Menas) who roam its streets after having crossed through the Tarajal. Vox denounces that many of these young people

spend weekends in Morocco

to be with their families and during the week they stay in reception centers. The breakwater on the Tarajal beach where most of them enter is a fence barely twenty meters long that ends in the sea, not in a very deep area. It is a dark stone beach, with some umbrellas and a beach bar where they serve sandwiches and drinks with views of the sea, the fence and Morocco. A few meters before the end of the wire fence is

commercial customs.

This border crossing had no customs until Pedro Sánchez and Mohamed VI signed the new road map in which Spain ratified

his change of position

regarding the Sahara. In exchange, Morocco agreed to open a commercial customs office in Ceuta and the reopening of the one in Melilla. The agreement was ratified in a document on April 7, 2022, but the opening of customs

It hasn't been normalized yet.

On January 27, a van from the Ceuta company Almacenes Bentolila crossed customs. The Government warned that it was

a pilot test

and that there is a road map with closed dates between the two countries to adjust how that step should be. Dates are private and also not announced before each opening attempt. The fact is that one year after the agreement, there is still no normalized entry and exit of goods through the Ceuta border. In February another oil export experiment was carried out and on Thursday reels of industrial paper and cars for domestic use were sent to Morocco. And yesterday the third phase of the process was completed, with the importation of Moroccan products across the Tarajal border by

First time in history.

Thursday,

a truck

Loaded with 15 tons of sand, it was waiting on Moroccan soil for authorization to deliver its merchandise to a company from Ceuta and it was late on Friday when EL MUNDO confirmed that the truck, from a tile company, had finally crossed.

«I had always voted for Vivas. in 2019

I switched to Vox,

but they have made a mistake mixing religion with politics, that cannot be, now I don't know what to do». A taxi driver from the city – “son of a Civil Guard who chased Moors down the mountain with a cape and tricorne, imagine the image” – repeats what seems to be the general weariness of a conservative population but tired of Juan Jesús Vivas. The mayor knows all the people, but the personal nature of these decades in power has bored the citizens and left the Ceuta PP without a successor.

And although Juan Gutiérrez, of the PSOE, aspires to form a left-wing coalition with

Fatima Ahmed,

Coalition for Dignity and Citizenship of Ceuta and

Ramon Rodriguez,

of Podemos, it seems difficult for them to govern. Although the most complicated thing is to land public policies in a city with so many powers delegated to the Central Government, where the solution seems to have no political color but to be at the expense of the will of Mohamed VI.