The underwater mountain that pits Spain against Morocco
Spain and Morocco recently held their thirteenth high-level meeting. The encounter confirmed that we are witnessing a shift in the center of gravity of border tensions between the two countries. Traditionally, media attention and political rhetoric have tended to focus on territorial disputes surrounding the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and, tangentially, on the surrounding islands, islets, and rocks (Chafarinas Islands, Vélez de la Gomera, Perejil, etc.). Migration dynamics have often served as a spark to reignite tensions that hang over these territories and that, intermittently, have been on the bilateral negotiating table since Morocco's independence in 1956. Meanwhile, the lack of official delimitation of maritime borders had remained discreetly in the background.
Morocco continues, and will foreseeably continue, to claim sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla. The two cities—and the disputed territories surrounding them—will surely remain central to the externalization and instrumentalization of migration controls, forming part of the perennial bilateral quid pro quo. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the true epicenter of the Spanish-Moroccan strategic rivalry is no longer on the North African coast, but submerged in the waters of the Atlantic. And particularly around a fascinating underwater mountain called the Tropic Seamount.
As the British geographer Klaus Dodds reminded us a few years ago in his bookBorder WarsFuture border conflicts will increasingly spill over into settings such as outer space or the abyssal depths. Dodds warned us that the catalyst for these new conflicts would be the rivalry for control of strategic resources that were until recently inaccessible, but which technology is now making available. The dispute between Spain and Morocco over Mount Tropic is a textbook example of this type of new "border war."
Located southwest of the island of El Hierro, this guyot (an ancient, submerged, flat-topped volcanic mountain) holds a veritable treasure trove of tellurium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. In a context where the European Union is scrambling to achieve strategic autonomy and decarbonization, the potential control of these minerals—crucial, for example, for manufacturing high-performance solar panels or batteries for electric vehicles—places this dispute in tropical latitudes at the heart of the geopolitical landscape.
The dispute has two inseparable dimensions. On the one hand, there is the technical overlap of the continental shelves claimed by Spain (with its 2014 UN request for extension) and Morocco (with its 2020 laws). On the other, there are the delicate Saharan ramifications of the dispute. It is worth recalling that Morocco delimits its exclusive economic zone using the Sahara as a reference point. The coast of Western Sahara – a territory awaiting decolonization according to international law. In this corner of the Atlantic, where the Tropic and its resources have lain dormant for millions of years, international law and realpolitik now clash stridently.
It is well known that the rules-based international order is not at its best. The instruments available to states for resolving border disputes or for developing unfinished decolonization processes are not functioning with the necessary agility. And in this context, the temptation to seize the opportunity and use legal means is growing in foreign ministries everywhere.
The border dispute surrounding Mount Tropic serves as a warning of the kind of tensions that will shape global geopolitics in the coming years. While we observe the legal maneuvers and diplomatic acrobatics that Spain and Morocco employ to redraw the boundaries of their sovereignty—indirectly weakening the aspirations of common neighbors with dwindling international influence—we should not lose sight of another border. This is the line that separates those who are thrilled at the prospect—still distant—of exploiting the strategic resources concentrated in deep-sea locations like Mount Tropic from those who shudder at the thought of a genuine environmental disaster resulting from the race to extract minerals from the seabed.
