At the previous summit with Moroccoin February 2023the Government was media expansive. He called the journalists to a prior information meeting and invited them to listen to the joint words of Pedro Sánchez jalong with his counterpart in Rabat. It was the summit of reconciliation. The president had decided by surprise to break Spain’s neutrality in the Western Sahara conflict and favor Morocco’s autonomist plan. Thus came to a close months of tensions that began with the medical treatment in Spain secretly offered to the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghaliand the consequent retaliation by Rabat in the form of a massive immigration assault of close to 8,000 Moroccans to Ceuta.
At the summit that is going to be held this Thursday in Madrid, almost three years later, a lot of contrast is perceived less communicative impetus in the Executive. It was announced by surprise with a brief note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairsfour lines: “In the current framework of the excellent bilateral relations between Spain and Morocco, both Governments have decided to hold the XIII High Level Meeting on December 4 in Madrid, preceded by a business meeting between both countries on December 3 in the Spanish capital.”
There has not been prior informative meeting andAccording to the program planned at the close of this edition, journalists are only invited to cover the graphic part of the visit, no questions. Neither the objectives of the meeting nor the expected results have been explained.
The little that is known about the official agenda includes the meeting in Moncloa this Thursday of president Pedro Sánchez with his Moroccan counterpart, Aziz Ajanuch. This Wednesday afternoon there will also be a Spanish-Moroccan business forum organized by the CEOE employers’ association, which will be inaugurated by the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planasand the Transportation Department will close, Oscar Puentetogether with the head of the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco. For his part, the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, meets with his counterpart Abdelatif Uahbi; and that of industry, Jordi Hereu, with that of Morocco, Ryad Mezzour.
“The Spanish Government is not interested in further politicizing the issue of relations with Morocco, because there is no political consensus, not even within its own government coalition,” he says in conversation with EL PERIÓDICO Irene Fernandez Molinaprofessor of International Relations at the University of Exeter and expert on Moroccan foreign policy. “For Moroccoalthough related media have written that their objective is to obtain concessions from Spain over the airspace of the Sahara or over maritime delimitations, I believe that it is more important to consolidate what has been gained and that Spain plays a favorable role for Morocco in the European Union”.
Security Council Resolution
Morocco lives a sweet geopolitical moment. It has the support of the Donald Trump Administration behind it, a president who dynamited the status quo on the Sahara by “recognizing” the sovereignty of Morocco shortly before leaving the White House in his first term in January 2021.
The delegation of the Maghreb country now arrives in Madrid emboldened after one of its greatest international diplomatic successes: the favorable resolution presented by the United States and approved by the United Nations Security Council United on October 31 with the abstention of Russia and China. It calls on the parties (Morocco and the Polisario Front, representative of the Sahrawi people) to engage in talks “without preconditions, based on Morocco’s autonomy proposalwith a view to achieving a definitive and acceptable political solution for all of them that contemplates the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.”
Archive – Flags of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) / GIVEN BY THE POLISARIO FRONT – Archive
The language is ambiguous, but novel. The autonomist plan takes precedence, but it is also requested that Morocco and the Polisario Front negotiate without preconditions and that the self-determination of the Sahrawi people be respected.
In any case, Rabat claimed victory: that day of the resolution, King Mohamed VI gave a triumphant speech to his people and there were celebrations in the streets.
Morocco’s agenda with Spain
Morocco considers its claim to be consolidated sovereignty over Western Sahara and is now focused on achieving its other demands.
He wants to negotiate with Spain in his favor the maritime median that separates Western Sahara from the Canary Islands. There are areas of high mineral wealth. 400 kilometers south of Iron Island is Mount Tropic, an underwater treasure rich in minerals and raw materials such as tellurium, cobalt and rare earths. According to media related to the Moroccan government, Rabat intends to create a Special Economic Zone and a corporation with Spain for the joint exploration and exploitation of possible deposits, sharing the benefits between both countries.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez (i), and the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI (c) on their first official trip of this legislature to Morocco, on February 21, 2024, in Rabat (Morocco). Sánchez’s trip, accompanied by the minister of Asun / Pool
It also seeks to cede control of the airspace over Western Sahara, which is now exercised from the Canary Islands by the Spanish operator Enaire.
bumpy road map
This new negotiating framework formally started on April 7, 2022. Then a joint declaration was signed in Rabat in which the recognition that Spain considered the autonomist solution presented by Morocco in 2007 as the “most serious, credible and realistic basis” for Western Sahara was put in black and white. In exchange, the Maghreb country undertook to control migratory flows at the land borders of the Autonomous Cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the departure of boats to the Canary Islands coasts.
It also agreed to reopen the Melilla customs office, closed seven years ago, and to implement a new one in Ceuta. After many tugs of war, the official opening took place at the beginning of this year, with a very limited passage of products. But the flow was minimal, and almost always in one direction: from Morocco to Spain.
In a new step backwards, Rabat decided to paralyze those few product crossings in summer. He alleged that they compromised Operation Crossing the Strait. This operation concluded in mid-September and, although officially both customs offices are operational, there has been no news of new merchandise crossings in either direction, Europa Press reports.
“The Moroccans have demonstrated their lack of interest, and how they control the times. They maintain a theoretical state of negotiation, but without making effective progress in the implementation of anything that has been negotiated,” says Fernández Molina, also author of the book Moroccan Foreign Policy under Mohamed VI and member of the Academic Council of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. “Spain has achieved stability on the borders of Ceuta and Melilla, but little else. Morocco has gained a lot: it has achieved Spanish legitimation of its position on Western Sahara, which in turn has contributed to producing a knock-on effect on other countries: from the recognition of sovereignty over the Sahara of France to the position of United Kingdom, more similar to the Spanish one.” Both countries voted in favor of the Security Council resolution.
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