The Diplomat
The Spanish government insisted yesterday that the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla is guaranteed by NATO’s collective defense clause, regardless of whether or not the two Autonomous Cities appear expressly in the Alliance’s official documents, in which “there are usually no specific mentions.”
“I am surprised by this debate on Ceuta and Melilla, because never, with governments of different sign, has this debate been raised”, declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to the program Espejo Público, of Antena 3, on the eve of the beginning of the NATO Summit in Madrid. “I have no doubt: Ceuta and Melilla are totally protected by NATO and I am sure that in the debates of these days and in the documents that are going to come out, NATO defends every centimeter of territorial integrity,” he continued.
In Albares’ opinion, these guarantees will be assured even without the express mention of Ceuta and Melilla in the Alliance’s documents. “There are not usually mentions of specific cities,” not only in the case of the two Autonomous Cities, but even of such important metropolises as “Paris, London or Washington,” he recalled.
For her part, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assured Canal Sur TV yesterday that “the new strategic concept speaks of the protection of the territorial integrity of each of the States”, so “it is not necessary to go into detail to which territories it is applicable, because that is what territorial integrity is”. “The peculiarities of each of the countries are not going to be collected”, but it is clear that, if NATO helps to protect the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine and other countries, “much more” it will do so in “the countries that are part of NATO”, he later declared to Telecinco’s El programa de Ana Rosa.
Stoltenberg
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared this past Monday, during a press conference in Brussels dedicated to the Madrid Summit, that “Article Six of the Washington Treaty defines the geographic scope of application of our collective defense guarantee, Article Five”, which includes “the territory of either party in Europe and North America or the islands under the jurisdiction of either party in the North Atlantic area, north of the Tropic of Cancer”. According to these words, Ceuta and Melilla would be excluded from such protection because they are in African territory, while the Canary Islands would be covered because they are an island territory located north of the Tropic of Cancer.
“Having said that,” Stoltenberg continued, “I think we have to understand that the question of invoking Article 5 and our collective defense clause is a political decision” which, therefore, “has to be made with the consensus of all the allies in the North Atlantic Council, based ultimately on the importance of each individual case.” “That’s all I can say,” he cautioned.
