Sánchez thanks the President of Mauritania for his country’s efforts for stability and peace in the Sahel

Eduardo González The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, received this Thursday at the La Moncloa Complex in Madrid, the President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Mohamed Cheikh El Ghazouani, whom he thanked for his country's work "to maintain stability, security and development in the Sahel". The Mauritanian president has travelled to Spain to attend the presentation of Spain's new Africa Strategy for the period 2025-2028, which took place at the La Moncloa Complex. During the bilateral meeting, which was attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, both leaders discussed the “excellent state of bilateral relations between the two countries”, recently boosted by the trips of the President of the Government in February and August of this year, according to Moncloa in a press release. Likewise, Pedro Sánchez thanked him for his “work to maintain stability, security and development in the Sahel”, where Mauritania “plays an essential role as a partner in the region”, and conveyed to him the Government's willingness to continue raising relations with Mauritania within the framework of the European Union, in which Spain presents itself as “one of the main supporters of the country to promote Global Gateway and Team Europe projects in strategic sectors”. Mauritania, located just 900 kilometres from the Canary Islands coast, maintains very close relations with Spain, traditionally focused on fishing and development cooperation, and which, since 2005, have been extended to other areas, such as cooperation in the fight against illegal immigration, terrorism and organised crime, the promotion of investments and cooperation in the field of defence. Sánchez travelled to Mauritania at the end of last August, as part of a tour that included Gambia and Senegal and with the migration issue as its central theme. On that trip, the President of the Government and the Mauritanian leader agreed to enhance the relationship between the two countries by holding, from 2025, periodic bilateral summits such as those that Spain already holds with other Maghreb countries, such as Morocco and Algeria. The first will take place in Mauritania. In fact, the holding of regular summits was already included in the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation between Spain and Mauritania, which was signed in Madrid in 2008 but did not come into force until 17 September this year due to numerous setbacks, such as the coup d'état of 6 August 2008, which deposed President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi and advised halting the ratification procedure of the treaty. The visit made to Spain in 2022 by El Ghazouani - democratically elected in 2019 - was a "propitious occasion" to relaunch it. The two leaders also signed a joint declaration in which they committed to deepening cooperation in sectors such as migration, health and security and to extend it to other areas of mutual interest, and announced their intention to open an extension of the Cervantes Institute in Nouakchott. Sánchez and El Ghazouani also discussed collaboration in the area of security and the fight against organised crime in August. The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, made an official visit to Mauritania at the end of October to discuss with her counterpart and the president of the country the improvement of military and training capabilities in order to deal with the “worrying situation” of security in the Sahel. Specifically, José Manuel Albares announced this week in Brussels, before his NATO counterparts, a Spanish contribution of half a million euros “to reinforce the capabilities of a strategic partner of the first order for Spain such as Mauritania”.

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