The first summit for eight years between Madrid and Rabat was to be held on Wednesday and Thursday, after the acceptance by Madrid of Moroccan politics in Western Sahara.
by Sandrine Morel ( Madrid, correspondent)
“We must build mutual respect. By swallowing snakes, if necessary.” The Spanish socialist MEP Juan Fernandez Lopez Aguilar could hardly summarize the position adopted by Madrid with regard to Rabat, the latter months, to reconnect relations between Spain and Morocco. This former minister referred to the vote, on January 19, by the European Parliament of an urgent resolution “the Moroccan authorities to respect freedom of expression and the media” and worry “of the allegations according to which the Moroccan authorities have tried to corrupt elected officials from the European Parliament “. The text, which won Rabat and which followed the revelations involving Morocco and Qatar, was only rejected by the extreme right and … by the Spanish socialist deputies.
In Madrid, the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, tried to close the controversy by explaining on January 24 in Madrid, that the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) did not share “certain elements of the text”. “Do not confuse prudence and pusillanimity in the face of a powerful enemy. This is not how we end up with intimidation,” replied the spokesperson for the Basque nationalist party (PNV, moderate right) , Airor Esteban. Pedro Sanchez insisted on “strategic importance for Spain and the European Union to have the best relations with Morocco”. It was not a question, for him, of risking a misstep on the eve of the high -level meeting which was to take place Wednesday 1
It has been eight years since Morocco and Spain had not held a common summit, a sign of the serious crisis that went through the relationship between the two countries. The tension had been at its height when in April 2021, Spain had welcomed and hospitalized, at the request of Algiers, Brahim Ghali, the head of the Sahrawi independence movement of the Polisario Front, reached by COVID-19. In response to what he considered an affront, Morocco has at least opposed the illegal entry of more than ten thousand of its citizens, including hundreds of minors, in the Spanish enclave de Ceuta.
“risky Paris”
A Rabat, Wednesday and Thursday, the two residents of the Strait of Gibraltar should stage their reconciliation, eleven months after the complete change in the traditionally neutral position of Spain on its former colony of Western Sahara. In March 2022, in a letter to King Mohammed VI, Pedro Sanchez qualified the Moroccan plan as “autonomy” of Western Sahara as “serious, realistic and credible”. All the Spanish parties, with the exception of the PSOE, condemned this decision, including its coalition partners. By the way, the government has drawn the wrath of Algeria, the main support of the Polisario Front. Algiers recalled its ambassador and broke up trade relations with Spain, with the exception of gas export, which represents a quarter of Spanish consumption and of which it has renegotiated the price strongly upwards.
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