The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced yesterday that the Government will soon present a new strategy for cooperation with Arab countries, ten years after the ‘Masar’ programme was launched.
Albares made this statement at the closing session of the seminar Trends and Challenges of Development Cooperation in the Mediterranean’, organised at Casa Árabe by the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), to re-evaluate the strategy of Spanish aid to the region.
In his speech, the minister reiterated that the countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean are an “absolutely priority part” of Spanish foreign policy, and said that the new strategy is necessary, after a decade in which the ‘Masar’ (‘Path’, in Arabic) programme has been in force. Albares recalled that this programme was initially focused on governance programmes, to which gender equality was later incorporated, until it became its “hallmark”, and to which a third pillar, that of water, has now been included.
“We have to be more effective, have a greater impact, help more towards the stability and prosperity of the Mediterranean, which is our own,” said the minister, who stressed that the new strategy must take into account the fact that this is a region with a mainly young population that is looking for opportunities.
Albares stressed that Spain can understand its past and present without the Mediterranean – “and neither do we want to”, he said – and must build its future by looking towards this sea.
With regard to the situation in Sudan, the minister assured that Spain would not abandon that country, having evacuated the ambassador and embassy staff from Khartoum, along with some thirty Spaniards.
Albares, who was pleased with the result of the evacuation operation carried out by his department in collaboration with the Defence Department, made it clear that the African country, the scene of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since 15 April, is not going to disappear from Spanish foreign action.
“We are going to join forces so that peace returns to Sudan and so that the transition process that was taking place does not falter and dialogue between Sudanese is resumed”, promised the head of Spanish diplomacy.
