The Government delegate in Ceuta regrets the closure of the border because "housewives are looking forward to the girl coming"

The Government delegate in Ceuta,

, regrets that "she has no news" that points to a "near" reopening of the land borders of the two autonomous cities with Morocco, and to illustrate the disorder that this consequence of the pandemic entails, first and of the diplomatic crisis afterwards, he gave a practical example of his own day to day.

“In Ceuta, especially housewives, we are looking forward to the girl coming, I tell you starting with me, that working here in the morning and cleaning in the afternoon, the truth is that it costs”, he assured last Friday at a press conference.

The representative of the Government of Pedro Sánchez thus alluded to the domestic workers of the neighboring country who worked until two years ago in Ceuta and who became more than 2,000 regularized and at least as many others, according to union estimates, in the submerged economy.

The statements have provoked political reactions in Ceuta, starting with Vox, which has ensured that "border control, the need to neutralize the leather-processing action that Morocco exerts through the

border and eliminating the strategically caused collapse of assistance in the city by the Moroccan government, it is reduced to the fact that the Government delegate in Ceuta, representative of the Government of Pedro Sánchez in the city,

he is having a very bad time because he doesn't have a Moroccan girl to clean his house".

The local political formation

criticized these "unfortunate" words.

"Three weeks ago we shared space in various feminist demands; today, your shameful statements make it clear to me that what you practice is a white, stale, archaic and inappropriate feminism of a progressive representative" of the Government of the nation, "said his spokesman.

Smart traffic control

Mateos considered that the reopening should not take place until the passage of Tarajal is "safe".

To achieve this, he cited two conditions, the end of the reform works currently underway with the installation of "intelligent" control systems for the movement of people, and the implementation of regulatory changes that correct the current system of requesting international protection by of citizens of the neighboring country.

Mateos announced that the third phase of the renovation work on the border infrastructure currently underway will be completed "at the beginning of June", and that during that same month he plans to have the technological systems for biometric control of people implemented, which will include a Schengen format ordinary and another specific for residents of the Moroccan province of

who can access the city without a visa.

"I think that there will be

(OPE) this year, and that these works could be finished in time to reopen with the highest security conditions," advanced the delegate, who considered "very interesting" the installation of facial recognition in the step "to really control who goes in and who goes out through it.

In addition, he reiterated that cross-border workers will be "the first" to be able to cross the border, both those who stayed or returned to Morocco after the closure of the border in the early hours of March 14, 2020, and those who chose to remain in the city ​​to keep their jobs despite remaining in a limbo in which their status as legal residents in Spanish territory is not recognized.

Mateos also considered "necessary" to address before the border is reopened the conditions under which the subjects of the Alaouite Kingdom can request international protection in the city, something that some 3,000 did after the avalanche in May last year.

Since then, practically all of them have managed to cross the Strait, once his petitions were admitted for processing.

The

has proposed to equate in the

any request for protection presented throughout Ceuta to those made in a

or at a border post.

In this way, the petitioners would be locked up and should be expelled in case of inadmissibility for processing or rejection by a much more expeditious procedure.

As sources from the Delegation have indicated to Europa Press, to achieve the same objective, Morocco could be declared a "safe country", which would be a direct reason for not admitting applications submitted within Spanish territory by its nationals.

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