The Diplomat
The Government yesterday avoided any pronouncement on the possible involvement of Morocco in the spying on Spanish politicians (the Pegasus case) or on the Spanish Intelligence reports accusing Rabat of using migratory flows to pressure Spain regarding Western Sahara.
According to two reports of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) quoted yesterday by the newspaper El País, the Spanish espionage services had alerted the Government of Morocco’s intention to use the irregular and uncontrolled migratory flows (as, in fact, happened in Ceuta in May 20, 2025), happened in Ceuta in May 2021) to force the recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, to try to relaunch the “debate on the overlapping zones between Saharawi waters and the Canary Islands” and, possibly, to gain control of Saharawi airspace, “currently under Spanish ownership”.
Those reports were issued after the serious diplomatic crisis which broke out between Spain and Morocco because of the irregular and secret entry of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali, to be treated in a hospital in La Rioja. The crisis ended last March with the decision of the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, to convey to King Mohamed VI Spain’s support for the Moroccan proposal for autonomy for Western Sahara, “the most serious, credible and realistic basis for the resolution of this dispute”. Following that unexpected change of course in Spanish foreign policy, Sanchez met on April 7 in Rabat with Mohammed VI to design the road map that will mark the “new stage” of bilateral relations.
“Everything carried out by the CNI is secret and no statement can be made in this regard,” said Defense Minister Margarita Robles yesterday during an interview with Telecinco. “I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of the news,” added the minister, who praised the “serious and rigorous” work and “always subject to the law” of the CNI, both inside and outside Spain.
Robles also did not want to comment on the alleged involvement of Rabat in the spying on the cell phones of several members of the Government (among them, Pedro Sánchez, the Minister of Agriculture and former ambassador in Rabat, Luis Planas; the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya; and the Minister of Defense herself) through the Pegasus program and limited to ask that accusations not be made “without evidence” and to recall that an investigation has been opened in the National Court and, therefore, it is necessary to act with “prudence”.
In the same sense, the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, declared yesterday that “all the reports issued by the National Intelligence Center are secret by law and, therefore, I cannot comment on them”. He also celebrated the “new stage” in the bilateral relations with Morocco and the collaboration “in migratory matters, against terrorism, in commercial, economic and cultural matters” and the “opening of the border crossings in Ceuta and Melilla”, which is “very important and very positive for Spain and also for Morocco”.
For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, avoided any pronouncement on the possible involvement of Rabat in the Pegasus case. “Let’s not make speculations, I have always said that speculations are absolutely undue and do not proceed,” he declared in Santiago de Compostela during the inauguration of the Ameripol (the American Europol) meeting. “I will always say it and I have said it: the relations with Morocco are of an extremely important, strategic loyalty, reliability and fraternity”, and these links “have been maintained, are maintained and will be maintained”.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has at all times invoked the “new spirit” in bilateral relations to avoid any comment on Pegasus. “International relations are based on facts, not on conjectures, not on hypotheses, and I am not going to enter into any conjecture or any hypothesis about any country in the world,” Albares declared in response to all the questions put to him on this subject last May 11, after meeting in Marrakech with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita.
