Felipe and Letizia Will Spend the Night in Ceuta for the First Time: Spain's Royals Head to the City More Than 80,000 People Entered From Morocco in July

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will make their first official visit to Ceuta on Tuesday, October 13 - and they will spend the night in the city. They will be the first Spanish monarchs of the democratic era to sleep there. The next day, Wednesday, they continue to Melilla. The news was reported by the Efe agency, citing sources at the Zarzuela Palace.

Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish cities on the north coast of Africa, with a land border with Morocco, which considers them its own. That is why every royal photo from there is more than protocol. The last royal visit to the two cities was about twenty years ago, when Juan Carlos and Sofía went - and it ended in a diplomatic crisis with Morocco. Did Madrid wait this long so as not to anger Rabat?

The July that changed what the trip means

The visit had been planned since before the end of July, when, according to Spanish media, more than 80,000 people crossed en masse from Morocco into Ceuta. In August Felipe cut short his holiday in Palma de Mallorca to receive Ceuta's president, Juan Jesús Vivas, at the Marivent Palace, and told him he wanted to come to the affected city in person. On September 2, Ceuta Day, the Crown sent the message: "The Crown and everyone, with our city." On September 17, for Melilla Day: "Today the Crown and all Spaniards celebrate Melilla, its history and the diversity that makes it a unique city."

The program: schools, a cemetery and two speeches

In Ceuta the royal couple will be at the city assembly at 12:30, for a closed-door meeting with local authorities. A visit to the "Vicente Aleixandre" primary school is planned for the afternoon. At 6 p.m. there will be an ecumenical ceremony at the Sidi Embarek cemetery, honoring the people who died at sea on July 30 and 31. At 7 p.m., at the Parador hotel, the king will meet representatives of civil society and give a speech.

In Melilla the schedule is similar: at 11:45 a visit to the city Assembly, at 4:15 p.m. to the "Pintor Eduardo Morillas" primary school, and at 5:45 p.m. a meeting with civil society at the "Melilla Puerto" hotel, again with a speech by the king.

Before that, on Monday, October 12, after the military parade for the National Day, the royals will host a reception at the Royal Palace in Madrid to which representatives of civil society from Ceuta and Melilla are invited. They made a similar gesture earlier toward the mayors and people affected by the floods in Valencia and the volcano on La Palma.

The Balkans know well what a city looks like when the neighbor considers it its own. When a state wants to say "this is ours", it doesn't just send diplomatic notes - it sends the head of state to sleep there. The question is who the Ceuta speech is really for: the people of the city who lived through the July crisis, or those who will be listening from the other side of the border?