After a year of major diplomatic spat, Spain and Morocco normalized their relations on Friday, March 18, thanks to a gesture of support long demanded by Rabat in Madrid over the highly sensitive issue of Western Sahara.
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“Today we are entering a new stage in our relations with Morocco, based on mutual respect, respect for agreements, non-unilateralism and transparency and constant communication,” the Spanish government said in a statement. The statement came after a press release from the Royal Palace of Morocco reported Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s announcement that the Moroccan “autonomy” plan for Western Sahara is “the most serious, realistic and credible to resolve the dispute.” “. A position that Madrid has never defended before, which has always advocated neutrality between Rabat and the Sahrawi separatists from the Polisario.
If the Spanish government does not accept this message in its press release and does not say a word about the Sahara, it indirectly confirms this by emphasizing that this “phase will take place within a clear and ambitious roadmap, as indicated in the press releases of the Moroccan government” . As part of the normalization of relations between the two countries, Pedro Sanchez is scheduled to visit Morocco, the date of which has not been announced, and the head of Spanish diplomacy, José Manuel Albarez, will travel to Rabat “before the end of the month,” the Spanish government said in a press release.
Madrid “surrendered”
According to Ignacio Chembrero, a Spanish journalist who specializes in relations between the two countries, “the Spanish government gave in to Morocco’s main demand” which asked him to “support his autonomy proposal” for Western Sahara. “This is an important change” because “Morocco demands that this be made public” but “the Spanish authorities have always helped Morocco (in this matter) in recent years” at their own discretion, he elaborates. In a press release, the Moroccan Foreign Ministry welcomed Spain’s “positive stance and constructive commitment to the Moroccan Sahara”.
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The conflict in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that the UN considers a “non-autonomous territory,” has pitted Morocco against Algerian-backed Saharan separatists from the Algerian-backed Polisario Front for decades. Rabat, which controls nearly 80% of the territory, is proposing a plan for autonomy under its sovereignty, while Polisario is demanding a self-determination referendum, planned at the signing of a ceasefire in 1991 but never implemented.
Migration crisis in Ceuta
A major diplomatic spat between Madrid and Rabat was sparked in April 2021 by the reception in Spain for Covid treatment of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, a sworn enemy of Rabat. This led to a massive arrival last May of migrants of Moroccan origin in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the northern coast of Morocco, taking advantage of loosening border controls on the Moroccan side. Prior to Friday’s announcements, tensions eased but did not stop. The Moroccan ambassador to Spain, summoned for consultations in May, has still not returned to Madrid.
According to Bernabé López, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid’s gesture on the Sahara is aimed, in part, at getting Rabat to manage migration flows. He believes that in order to “tighten the screws a little and have more control, and not this deliberate lack of control on the part of Morocco.” Western Sahara is at the center of all Rabat’s diplomatic activities.
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In exchange for resuming diplomatic relations with Israel, Morocco got the United States, then led by Donald Trump, to recognize the “Moroccan” status of the former Spanish colony. Last week, Washington reiterated its support for Rabat, reaffirming that his autonomy plan is “serious and credible.”
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