Eduardo González
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares welcomed his Mauritanian and Algerian counterparts, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzouk and Ahmed Attaf, respectively, to the Ministry headquarters at the Palacio de Viana in Madrid on Saturday, February 7.
Albares first met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, and Mauritanians Abroad of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzouk. “Today in Madrid, we confirmed the progress of the friendship and cooperation between Spain and Mauritania,” he wrote on social media. “With my friend, Minister Mohamed Salem Ould Merzouk, we finalized the implementation of the commitments of our first High-Level Agreement on Cooperation (HLA) in 2025,” he added.
The meeting, he explained, also addressed “strengthened cooperation” in support of “orderly migration and mobility, which saves thousands of lives in the Atlantic,” “economic and trade relations, with fishing at the heart of it,” and cultural cooperation. “With the Cervantes Institute active in Nouakchott, Spanish continues to strengthen our ties,” he wrote.
“At the regional level, we are committed to stability in the Sahel and to strengthening EU-Mauritania cooperation. Our joint projects continue, as does the drive toward a stronger and deeper EU-Mauritania partnership,” he concluded.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, traveled to Nouakchott on July 15, 2025, accompanied by several ministers, for the first High-Level Meeting (HLM) with Mauritania. This meeting was held in accordance with the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, which entered into force on September 17, 2024, more than 16 years late. The treaty stipulates, among other things, that an HLM will be held at least every two years, alternating between the two countries.
At the July Higher Regional Meeting (HRM), Pedro Sánchez and the President of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, adopted a joint declaration urging European institutions and member states to strengthen their political and financial commitment to this African country by developing a comprehensive and strategic agreement on migration. This agreement would contribute to increasing institutional capacity, providing technical and human resources, and supporting socioeconomic development projects.
“In addition to our traditional collaboration on fisheries and cooperation, our bilateral relationship is gaining increasing importance in other areas, such as the economic and business sectors, migration, and security, as well as in other fields, such as culture,” the Prime Minister stated at the end of the meeting.
Algeria
Subsequently, Albares held a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the National Community Abroad of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, Ahmed Attaf.
“Happy to welcome Algeria’s Foreign Minister, Ahmed Attaf, to Madrid,” he wrote on social media. “We have strongly consolidated political relations of friendship. We are friends, partners, and neighbors. Algeria is our leading gas supplier, a strategic, reliable, and constant partner,” he continued. “Our trade relations are experiencing an extraordinary moment: our exports grew by 190% in 2025 and 141% in 2024. Spain and Algeria continue to move forward together,” he concluded.
In April 2022, the decision by Pedro Sánchez’s government to support the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco for Western Sahara allowed it to overcome a very serious diplomatic crisis with Rabat, but at the cost of seriously damaging relations with Algeria, Spain’s main gas supplier, at a particularly delicate time due to the energy crisis stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The thaw in bilateral relations began in 2023, following Sánchez’s address to the UN General Assembly in which he advocated for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict “within the framework of the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions,” without mentioning Morocco’s autonomy proposal, and thanks to Spain’s support for a Palestinian state.
The first meeting between Albares and Attaf since the diplomatic crisis took place last February on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in South Africa. Their most recent meeting was in late September 2025 in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Week.
