Spain Expat Press Editorial Team
The crisis over Ceuta is becoming an increasingly difficult political challenge for Pedro Sánchez. What began as another confrontation with Spain’s conservative opposition is now spilling into the political and media environment traditionally closer to the Spanish left and the governing Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
One of the most striking examples is Antonio García Ferreras, the veteran political broadcaster whose programme Al Rojo Vivo on laSexta has long occupied an influential position in Spain’s left-leaning media landscape.
Ferreras is not a conservative commentator. That is precisely why his increasingly confrontational tone towards members of Sánchez’s government has attracted attention.
Ferreras turns up the heat
The confrontation intensified on 18 September after former senior PSOE politician Eduardo Madina criticised the government’s handling of the situation in Ceuta.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente responded by publicly attacking Madina, accusing him of being driven by resentment towards Pedro Sánchez.
Ferreras then hit back at the minister during Al Rojo Vivo, describing him as a “matón del PSOE” — a “PSOE thug” — and questioning the government’s treatment of those who criticise its handling of Ceuta.
“This is the PSOE thug, once again, turning the PSOE into North Korea.”
The language was striking not because it came from the conservative opposition, but because it came from a prominent broadcaster operating within a media environment traditionally associated with the Spanish left.
Ferreras, tras el ataque de Puente a Madina: “Este es el matón del PSOE, un día más, para convertir el PSOE en Corea del Norte” pic.twitter.com/0H1zv3eWGs
— AlRojoVivo (@DebatAlRojoVivo) September 18, 2026
The clash with Puente, however, was not an isolated incident.
Earlier in September, Ferreras had also sharply criticised Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska following the publication of a police report concerning the events in Ceuta. He described the minister’s reaction as “alucinante” — astonishing — and said that Marlaska appeared not to have understood what had happened.
Dissent reaches the Socialist ranks
For Sánchez, the more significant problem is that criticism is not confined to journalists.
Socialist politicians in Ceuta have also publicly questioned the central government’s response.
Melchor León and Sebastián Guerrero, PSOE representatives in the Assembly of Ceuta, have repeatedly demanded a stronger response from Madrid and accused the government of failing to “show its face” during the crisis.
León has gone considerably further.
He has said that he feels “humiliated” by his own government and has publicly complained of a sense of abandonment in Ceuta. He has also argued that the interests of the autonomous city must come before party discipline.
That represents an uncomfortable development for the PSOE leadership. Criticism of Sánchez’s handling of Ceuta can no longer easily be presented simply as an offensive from the conservative opposition.
Madina adds another uncomfortable voice
Then came Eduardo Madina.
The former PSOE heavyweight said this week that he struggled to understand the government’s handling of the crisis, arguing that virtually none of its decisions had been adequately explained.
His intervention was politically significant because Madina is not an outside observer of the Socialist Party. He was once one of its most prominent figures and competed against Pedro Sánchez for the PSOE leadership in 2014.
Puente’s aggressive response to Madina subsequently shifted part of the debate away from Ceuta itself and towards another question: how does the governing party react when criticism comes from within its own political family?
Ferreras’s extraordinary intervention was, in large part, a response to that question.
The government rejects the criticism
The Sánchez government and the PSOE leadership, however, strongly reject the suggestion that they have failed to respond to the crisis.
Government representatives argue that managing the unprecedented situation in Ceuta requires coordination between different administrations and insist that Madrid has been working to restore normality while protecting security and humanitarian guarantees.
The government has also accused the Partido Popular of politicising the crisis and has criticised PP-led regional governments over their resistance to accepting migrant minors transferred from Ceuta.
Madrid has meanwhile taken measures on the ground. Around 1,700 migrants were transferred on 18 September from makeshift settlements on Ceuta’s beaches to temporary facilities in the port area, although thousands remained without places in the new accommodation.
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has also called for a permanent Frontex presence in Ceuta and for greater European recognition of the particular pressures faced by Ceuta and Melilla.
The government therefore argues that the picture presented by its critics ignores measures already being implemented in an exceptionally complex situation.
A different political problem for Sánchez
Yet politically, the significance of the latest criticism lies elsewhere.
Governments expect attacks from their opponents. What becomes more difficult is when doubts begin to emerge among people who cannot easily be dismissed as ideological adversaries.
Ferreras, Madina and the Socialist representatives in Ceuta are very different figures and their criticisms should not be treated as part of a coordinated political movement.
But together they illustrate something important: the debate over Ceuta has moved beyond the traditional left-versus-right confrontation.
That matters for Pedro Sánchez.
The question is no longer simply whether the PP and Vox can use Ceuta against the government. It is whether the government can maintain confidence among parts of its own political and media environment while unanswered questions remain over the handling of the crisis, the warnings received before the mass crossings and the subsequent response by the Spanish authorities.
For Sánchez, that may prove to be the more difficult battle.
Because opposition criticism is expected.
Criticism from your own side is much harder to ignore.
