Abdel-Wahed Ouarzazi
Professor of Economics
Sánchez’s turnaround was eagerly awaited in Morocco. France and Spain, as well as the UK and Germany, are well aware of the history of the Sahara’s Moroccanness. To accept the generous Autonomy Plan for the Kingdom’s Southern Provinces, as the international community is doing, is to recognise Morocco’s full sovereignty over its ancestral territories.
Sánchez’s visit to Rabat marks a turning point in Spanish-Moroccan diplomatic relations. And everything indicates that a genuine partnership will be forged, beyond national interests, which will also include common strategic interests, with a view to defending the geopolitical space common to both neighbours.
The Kingdom of Morocco’s democratic and social evolution, its stability and its recognised ‘soft power’ have positioned it among the decision-makers. It is considered the strongest partner of the US, the EU and NATO in North Africa. Indeed, it is the only country capable of guaranteeing peace, prosperity and security. These are essential elements for weaving international relations in a troubled world order.
On the southern flank, Morocco stands as a solid bastion for Spain in the face of the instability of a knocked-out Algeria, a Libya undergoing reconstruction and a country like Tunisia in regression. All of them border, to the south, not far from Spain and Europe, with terrorist groups that roam freely in the Sahel.
This scenario, coupled with the current war crisis in the centre of Europe, calls for unwavering unity. The US, EU and all allies on all five continents are plotting global strategies to reduce Russia and its allies to nothing by the macabre invasion of Ukraine.
This context would have precipitated the change in the Sánchez government’s foreign policy which, in addition to being in line with the UN Resolutions, implies an intelligent reading of the real threats that threaten the Spanish-Moroccan common space with the risk of extending to the whole of Europe. The need to tackle them jointly, in time and with forcefulness, requires urgent unity of action.
Despite this, many Spanish politicians and analysts fail to see Sánchez’s reasons for a turnaround that is the only real basis for a solution to an invented problem that has lasted almost 50 years and whose victims are “people”, literally abandoned to their fate. Some for ideology (Podemos, Bildu, ERC, CUP), others for partisan interests (Vox, PP) and the rest wield fanciful arguments of humiliation, surrender, among other nonsense. In any case, these are reasons of state, supranational, that have nothing to do with Ceuta, Melilla or the waters of the Canary Islands, which are nothing more than minor issues.
The real threat comes from the Polisario mercenaries, which have become a breeding ground for Daesh, and Wagner’s Russian mercenaries. Both militias, supported by the Algerian military junta and Russia’s Tsar Putin, could at any moment destabilise a weakened Maghreb, shifting the conflict to Spain. Putin and his Algerian ally Algeria could sprout offshoots of the Russia-Ukraine war in the Sahel. Faced with this uncertain scenario, it was logical for Sánchez to take a stand. Algeria’s infamous gesture of recalling its ambassador to Madrid for consultations and raising the price of gas in retaliation is typical of a state that sees its interests at risk. That interest is none other than its expansionist ambition towards the Atlantic on the back of the Polisario idiots.
From an economic point of view, the new alliance will reinforce the integration process of the Euro-Moroccan economy, led by Spain, by implementing the new strategic priorities of an advanced status with the EU, which had elevated Morocco, at the Association Council meeting in June 2019, to the rank of “Europe’s partner for shared prosperity”, in the framework of the new Neighbourhood Agenda.
Could this cooperation boost the mega-project of the bridge between the two shores or the installation of the Nigeria-Morocco/Spain-Europe gas pipeline? Both projects are feasible. The latter being the most urgent, as Algeria has already sworn allegiance to Russia, putting its partnership with the EU at risk.
The current energy crisis obliges Morocco and Spain to continue to support the Green Agenda by promoting projects of this nature. Especially when the Southern Provinces are in full development. And Spain, from the Canary Islands, could participate in these energies (wind and solar) in addition to green hydrogen. Moreover, the port of Dakhla, which is under construction, would require parallel motorways and rail networks for the transport of containers (and passengers) that would link the Southern Provinces with the Northern Provinces, as well as linking distribution by road with the ECOWAS countries.
In short, the economic possibilities are enormous if we consider the multiplier effect of all possible investments, public and private, and their impact on the creation of new jobs in both countries. Investments that would be integrated into Morocco’s New Development Model (NMD) and would benefit from the advantages offered by the recently approved Investment Charter, which provides for significant bonuses. A ‘win-win’ cooperation where shared competitiveness and factorial complementarity of companies on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and the South Atlantic will prevail.
Spain’s move, which will be followed by France and the United Kingdom, who have not yet done so officially but have done so verbally, as well as Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, etc., is just one more step towards the liberation of the long-suffering Sahrawi people from the Algerian-Polish yoke. Apart from unblocking Spanish-Moroccan relations, which were more limited to economic and anti-terrorist cooperation, Sánchez’s decision neutralises any Russian-Algerian ambitions in the Atlantic.
Today, we can predict the construction of advanced relations, at least comparable to Franco-Moroccan relations, if not superior for reasons of proximity and very unique common geopolitical spaces.
In this sense, would a defensive Spanish-Moroccan coalition be possible from the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, including the Sahel?
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