The cost of the ticket for two people and a tourist of normal proportions on the Balearia ferry that connects the ports of Algeciras and Tanger-Med has shot up 23% between this Tuesday and this Wednesday, the start of the resumed Operation Crossing the Strait. What only a few hours before cost 195 euros on average, has risen to 241. The crossing to Ceuta has experienced the same phenomenon, but with an even more pronounced increase, bordering on 50%: from 107 euros on average, to 148, 3. 4. There are no price comparisons for the ticket to Algeria: they are sold out all boat tickets between Valencia and the port of Mostaganem, next to Algiers, until mid-August.
These are the first details of the recovery of the OPE this Wednesday at 00:00. OPE calls all the entities involved (Interior, General Directorate of Traffic, Mossos, Ertzaintza, Red Cross, State Ports…) to Operation Crossing the Strait, which returns after its suspension due to the pandemic in May 2020, and, in the spring of 2021, by unilateral decision of Moroccowhich only opened its hand to ships that had sailed from French ports.
With the diplomatic relationship with the Alaouite kingdom resumed, and the connection with the Algerian republic in suspense, now comes the first great test for these new situations. Massive test, it would be said by its forecasts. In 2019, the last year for which data is available, there were 3.4 million North African holidaymakers and 760,000 cars and vans who crossed Spain from La Jonquera and Irún to Algeciras, Valencia, Tarifa, Motril, Almería or Alicante, bound for their places of origin and return to the points in Spain, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands to which they emigrated in their day looking for work and that today are their places of residence.
thirty lucrative hours
The 15-hour journey across the peninsula on the way out -and as many on the way back- required the mobilization of 21,000 public workers, between mossos, ertzainas, civil guards, Red Cross volunteers and Civil Protection agents, and accounted for revenues of 100 million euros in food and drink businesses located in gas stations and service areas. This year, all that calculation… without counting the fuel: it is an average of two tanks on the way out and another two on the return, plus a stop to fill up the tank before entering French territory. the soaring prices of gasoline and diesel make different sources involved in the OPE handle a forecast of more than 500 million euros billing at gas stations.
The cost of fuel also influences the cost of sea passage. Balearia, the line awarded the public connection by sea between Ceuta and Melilla with the peninsula, is not authorized in its contract to adjust prices to the 120% increase that fuel has suffered, but it can raise to the top the repercussion on the ticket foreseen in the adjudication. “A bird that happens, estacazo”, ironizes a trade unionist of the merchant marine. He wants to point out the opportunity to raise prices – not only the Spanish shipping company, all those that operate in the OPE – when demand grows spectacularly.
There are no special details of the police deployment for the 2022 OPE, indicate sources from the Ministry of the Interior, convinced that it will not be different from that of the summer of 2019. In other words, divided into a one-way phase (June 15 to August 15) and back (July 15 to September 15) and with accumulated experience for avoid chaos in the port of Algeciras, the main destination of this great caravan.
For the first 350 kilometers there are no special indications to the Mossos de Trànsit, they indicate in that body, beyond a reinforcement of mobile speed radars and their corresponding sanctions. But Catalan police sources indicate that this measure is related to the accident rate, and not to Operation Crossing the Strait. In fact, they criticize the measure because “drivers do not see us sanctioning, nor do they see the presence of patrols increased on the road, with which the dissuasive effect is lost”.
High speed is not the most frequent offense in this group, or not as much at least as the overloading of their vehicles or the unauthorized modification of their perimeter or height, indicate sources from the Civil Traffic Guard.
fear of queues
Most of the maritime traffic goes to Tangier or Nador, and not so much to Ceuta and Melilla. But in both Spanish cities in North Africa, there is concern about the forecast of large queues at the border. Morocco, which does not allow the introduction of foreign goods through Ceuta or Melilla, is thoroughly reviewing the cars.
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Interior sources downplay that forecast: “Every year it is said at the beginning of the OPE that there will be long queues, and then it always flows well.” But the fear this time seems to be based on the attitude that the inhabitants of both cities find in the Moroccan border guards. “They won’t let you put in a single piece of chocolate that you’re eating,” exaggerates a Melilla merchant who is disgusted with the situation. The truth is that clothes or cosmetics, for example, bought in stores in Melilla or Ceuta they do not pass into Morocco if their tags are attached.
As a reply, Spain has placed limitations on the quantity and quality of food products who come from Morocco through the borders of El Tarajal or Beni Enzar. The daily nightly fish truck that brought fresh catches from the Mar Chica to Melilla has stopped entering. “Now bringing you a grouper from Morocco is more difficult for you than going to Malaga to get it,” laments the same source.