Morocco: the great problem of Spanish politics
BarcelonaThe relationship with Morocco has always been strategic for any Spanish government and, despite occasional incidents such as the dispute over the islet of Perejil in 2002, governments of different political stripes have tried to maintain good neighborly relations. In recent years, however, a series of phenomena have taken place that have increased Morocco's power and influence over Spain and also over the EU. Its role as a guardian of the southern European border, and the exponential increase in migratory flows, gives it great bargaining (and extortion) power, and its recent rapprochement with the United States and Israel has made it an increasingly fearsome actor. This is the context of the Ceuta migration crisis and also what explains what happened this Thursday in the Congress of Deputies, where Pedro Sánchez has been left alone defending that Rabat had no role in the massive entry of immigrants.
The Spanish government wants to avoid a diplomatic clash with Morocco at all costs, and Sánchez seems willing to pay a high price to achieve it. To understand why, we must go back to the year 2021, when there was indeed a diplomatic clash due to the decision of the Spanish authorities to provide assistance to the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali. At that time, Rabat not only sponsored a massive jump of immigrants into Ceuta, but also closed the border, which caused many economic problems in the Spanish cities, which depend on their exchanges with northern Morocco. The efforts to reopen the border lasted two years and, in the meantime, Sánchez had to change his Minister of Foreign Affairs and vary the Spanish position on the Sahara. A change, by the way, that several European countries have also made, such as Germany.
The relationship with Morocco, therefore, will be one of the major topics of Spanish politics in the coming years, and in this sense it must be emphasized that it is by no means an easy issue. Sánchez is trapped by Moroccan blackmail and practices a policy of appeasement with more than dubious results. But it is also not at all clear that the PP and Vox have a credible alternative, among other things because this policy of appeasement is also partly imposed by the EU, which does not want problems with Morocco. And in any case: what would Feijóo and Abascal do? Break off relations with a country that has the capacity to cause chaos in Ceuta and Melilla and with which there are intense economic and all kinds of other relations? Today's displays of patriotism can surely end in displays of genuflection tomorrow.
Beyond that, the big unknown is what lies behind this incident. Did Washington promote it to take revenge on Sánchez? Is it a reprisal from Rabat against the law that Congress wants to approve to grant Spanish nationality to the Sahrawis who held it before 1975? Is it, simply, a show of force in view of a future territorial claim? These are the questions that really demand an answer, and it does not seem that either Sánchez or the opposition are in a position to give it.