Melilla agrees to present the Golden Key to the Kings of Spain

The Governing Council of Melilla included among the agreements of its ordinary session on October 8, 2026, the presentation of the Golden Key of the City to Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain. The agreement is published in the Official Gazette of the Autonomous City of Melilla (BOME) number 6425, dated October 23, 2026, within the summary of agreements identified by reference BOME-A-2026-1186. The matter appears as item 11 on the agenda, under the heading “Matter presented by the Presidency,” with file number 34332/2026.

The summary is published by virtue of Article 22.5 of the Regulations of the Government and Administration of the Autonomous City of Melilla, which requires the official gazette to report the agreements adopted in a resolution session. The document occupies pages 5232 and 5233 of issue 6425 and is signed in Melilla on October 13, 2026, by the Secretary of the Governing Council, María José Gómez Ruiz, whose position is supported by Decree No. 103, of June 2, 2025 (Extraordinary BOME No. 35, of June 3, 2025).

The gazette does not reproduce the full text of the deliberations: it refers to the minutes published on the Transparency Portal of the City’s official website, in accordance with Article 22.5 of the Regulations of the Government and Administration and Article 11.2 h) of the Regulations on Transparency and Access to Public Information of the City (BOME No. 5357, of July 19, 2016).

A unique item in an agenda of twenty matters

The summary of the session of October 8, 2026, lists twenty items. The first eight, from 3 to 10, correspond to judicial proceedings: appearances in procedures followed in the Court of First Instance of Melilla —Contentious-Administrative and Juvenile sections— and the exercise of actions for damages to public property in a traffic accident on December 24, 2025.

Item 11 is the only one headed under the section “Matter presented by the Presidency” and consists, literally, of the “presentation of the Golden Key of the City to Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain.” Items 12 to 20 are divided among the departments of Economy, Trade, Technological Innovation, Tourism and Development; Education, Youth and Sport; and Social Policies and Public Health, and include tourism bonus agreements, the educational reconciliation services program, and an addendum to the agreement with the Food Bank for 2026.

The framework of the City’s distinctions

The presentation is part of the Autonomous City’s honors system, regulated by the Regulations on Honors and Distinctions of the Autonomous City of Melilla. That same autumn, the Assembly of Melilla, in an urgent extraordinary session on September 14, 2026, approved two grants of the City’s Gold Medal, published in BOME number 6415, dated September 18, 2026 (article BOME-A-2026-1041, page 4756):

• The Gold Medal to Torreblanca Melilla Club de Fútbol, proposed by the Ministry of Culture, Cultural Heritage, and the Elderly (file 25862/2026).
• The Gold Medal to the Interfaith Table of Melilla, for reasons of courtesy and institutional reciprocity, in accordance with Article 6 of the Regulations on Honors and Distinctions (file 25865/2026).

What the excerpt does not specify

The publication is limited to stating the matter: it does not detail the date or location of the presentation ceremony, the planned protocol format, the material or design of the piece, nor the rest of the institutional agenda linked to the visit. Nor does it specify the scope of the agreement beyond its statement, as the bulletin refers to the full minutes of the Governing Council.

The relevance of the announcement is twofold for the readers of Melilla. On one hand, it places the City at the highest level of the State’s institutional protocol by recognizing the Crown with the highest-ranking distinction granted by the local administration. On the other, it opens a period of administrative and protocol preparation whose development—dates, itinerary, and citizen participation—is not yet listed in the Official Bulletin and must be specified in subsequent publications.

Source: Official Bulletin of the Autonomous City of Melilla (BOME), no. 6425, dated October 23, 2026, section I, pp. 5232-5233 (official reference: BOME-A-2026-1186).