The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved the referral to the Parliament of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between Spain and Mauritania and authorized the manifestation of Spain’s consent to be bound by this Treaty. This agreement, in the Government’s opinion, will put Mauritania on an equal footing with other neighboring Maghreb countries, including Algeria, whose Treaty of Friendship with Spain was recently suspended by Algiers because of the deterioration of bilateral relations.
The Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between Spain and Mauritania was signed in Madrid on July 24, 2008, following authorization by the Council of Ministers on the same day. The signatories were the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, on the Spanish side, and the then President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, on the Mauritanian side.
The coup d’état of August 6, 2008, which deposed President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, made it advisable to paralyze the treaty ratification procedure, but the visit made last March 17 to Spain by President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani – democratically elected in 2019 -, was a “propitious occasion to enhance bilateral relations at the highest political level and to resume the procedure to advance the treaty ratification process”, according to the Executive.
The treaty, which surpasses the Political Declaration (signed in 2003) and the Memorandum of Understanding on Political Consultations (signed in 2015) with a higher-ranking conventional instrument, aims to strengthen and enhance bilateral relations between the two States, both at the highest political level and between ministerial departments, the private sector and civil society. It also aims to improve cooperation in a wide range of areas: economic and financial, cooperation in the field of security, defense, legal aspects, consular and migration issues, the fight against terrorism, organized crime and illicit drug trafficking. Finally, other aspects are included, such as development cooperation and the areas of culture and education.
“The treaty will represent a qualitative leap in bilateral relations and will constitute a further step in the growing importance of the Maghreb and Sahel regions for our foreign policy,” he continued. “Moreover, the treaty will put Mauritania on a par with neighboring Maghreb countries: Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria,” the Executive added, despite the recent suspension by the Algerian government of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation with Spain in protest of President Pedro Sánchez’s decision to recognize the validity of the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara.
