Spain pushes Ceuta and Melilla security «threats» onto NATO agenda

A delegation from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is set to arrive in Melilla this Friday for a two-day working visit, according to local media reports. The program includes a meeting with the city’s president, as well as visits to the detention center for irregular migrants and the headquarters of the Spanish army command in the enclave.

Although the Assembly is not formally part of the Atlantic Alliance, Spanish officials see the visit as an opportunity to highlight what they describe as «security threats facing Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco». The complaints raised are expected to be included in reports later submitted to NATO.

Spain is represented in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly by 12 deputies, evenly split between the PSOE and the People's Party. At the NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022, Spain pushed, unsuccessfully, to have Ceuta and Melilla explicitly included under NATO’s protective umbrella in the roadmap adopted during the meeting.