The government does not foresee that the ministers summoned by the Partido Popular (PP) will appear in the Senate next week to report on the management of the Ceuta migration crisis. Instead, he refers to the hearings that the government itself has requested from the Congress of Deputies, the lower house, which will be held at the end of this month. This, according to government sources, is the picture of the situation, after the Partido Popular, which holds the absolute majority in the Senate, has scheduled hearings of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, before their respective parliamentary commissions next week, and of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares Bueno, the following week.
The PP also requested a meeting of the Permanent Committee of the Congress, the only body that remains active during non-ordinary sessions, to decide whether to oblige the three ministers to appear before the Congress before September, when the House resumes its ordinary activities.
They also requested the summoning of the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, before the Joint Committee (Congress-Senate) on Homeland Security.
However, last Friday the government announced that Marlaska, Robles, Albares and Bolaños had made themselves available to appear on their own initiative before the Congress of Deputies, proposing the last week of August as an indicative date. Therefore, sources in the Moncloa Palace indicate that the ministers are not expected to grant the Senate’s request, which has already happened on several occasions during this legislative session, and that they will simply inform Congress about their role in the migration crisis.
The PP also requests that the Permanent Commission of the Congress, whose meeting is scheduled only for the end of August, forces the convening of an extraordinary plenary session so that the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, can answer for what happened in the autonomous city, a hearing that the executive is not currently taking into consideration.
Furthermore, the PP requested the appearance of the chief of staff of the prime minister, Diego Rubio, before the plenary committee (Congress-Senate) on National Security, to explain the dismissal of an official