A letter between Moncloa and the royal palace Rabat. That’s how the reconciliation between the two neighboring countries. That letter, which Morocco made public on the afternoon of Friday, March 18, 2022, when the country was still digesting the couscous, contained the words to unlock the diplomatic crisis. “Spain considers the Moroccan autonomy initiative (referring to the Occidental Sahara), presented in 2007, as the most serious, realistic and credible basis for resolving differences”. A phrase that led to the visit of Pedro Sanchez to Rabat in April in which a road map was drawn up to build bridges again. The High Level Meeting (RAN) this Wednesday and Thursday in Rabat is the last act of this reconciliation that has lasted almost a year.
On April 7, 2022, the Spanish president’s plane landed at the Rabat airport. At his side, I traveled Manuel Albares, Foreign Minister. Received at the foot of the track by the President of the Moroccan Government, they went directly to the royal palace. Mohamed VI was waiting for them. Sánchez and the monarch celebrated together the iftarfast-breaking lunch during the ramadan. It was also an important gesture that Sánchez spent that night in the country.
Little by little, the two countries have been removing from a drawer many of the dossiers that had been weighed down by the crisis. Resume the operation of the Strait, reopen the border crossings of Ceuta and Melilla, and reactivate the ferries between the two countries and, above all, “strengthen cooperation on migration“.
Albares-Bourita
The visits to Morocco and the meetings between Manuel Albares and his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser BouritaThey have become common. In almost a year, the two heads of diplomacy have met seven times. Before the cameras, smiling and showing good harmony, even effusiveness on the part of the Spanish. Albares picked up the Foreign Affairs portfolio at Arancha Gonzalez Laya, who left his position in the midst of the crisis with Morocco due to the admission of the Polisario leader to a hospital in La Rioja and the entry of 10,000 people to Ceuta. His departure was one of the first gestures that Rabat welcomed.
For Moroccan diplomacy, the change in Foreign Affairs opened the door to rebuilding bridges, but they were still waiting for more gestures. Bourita is one of the most influential politicians in his country and belongs to the close circle close to the monarch. With him at the head of diplomacy, Morocco has woven and collected important support for the ‘Moroccan cause‘, which is none other than to achieve the international recognition of the Moroccanness of Western Sahara. This is the main pillar on which almost the entire weight of his diplomacy rests. It is and has been the reason for numerous fights that the North African country has maintained with various countries inside and outside Europe. It has also been a reason for reconciliation, as with Spain.
The topics sensitive
The relationship between neighbors is not always easy, in the case of Morocco and Spain, there are above all two sensitive issues (in addition to Western Sahara): The migration Y Ceuta and melilla. A large part of Moroccans defend that these two autonomous cities are territories occupied by Spain. Even the authorities always try to avoid using the word “border” and in many newspapers, Ceuta and Melilla are accompanied by “busy cities“.
One of the first times that a voice within the Moroccan government assured that their country had land borders with Spain was when a letter addressed to the United Nations came to light, in which Morocco denied the border and described Melilla as “occupied prison“. The letter dated from September 2022, but it was not made public until a month later. To close the controversy, a senior official from the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, through the Efe agency, that the joint statement that signed by both countries recognizes that there are “land borders” between the two countries
During the visit of the Spanish president to Rabat, he stated that the “Spanish sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla is beyond all doubt“. The two countries also agreed that the transit of people and goods across those borders would be done in an “orderly” manner. In practice, this has meant the end of smuggling, an activity that was allowed in the past, and which provided an economic base for the populations on both sides of the fence, but at the same time irregular. Morocco was the one who put the issue on the table and decided to stop this practice.
Melilla’s tragedy
On June 24, 2022, the alarms began to go off in the Melilla fence. Little by little, videos from the Barrio Chino border crossing were being published on social networks. In one, hundreds of migrants were seen trying to overcome the fence; in another, how the police beat and dragged migrants to the Moroccan side; also dozens of these people lying on the ground, some without moving. Humanitarian organizations defined that day as the “worst tragedy experienced on the border.” At least 23 people died and dozens were returned hot from Spain to Morocco.
The Spanish and Moroccan governments closed ranks to defend the actions of the police from both countries. The official discourse was that it was a “violent assault” and that the migrants were “organized by mafias”. Two weeks later, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, visited Rabat. In his meeting with his counterpart, he praised the work of Morocco: “It is carrying out a important work of containment of the irregular migration that must be recognized.”
The latest data from the Ministry of the Interior indicate that in 2022, 25% fewer migrants arrived in Spain compared to the previous year. Since the restitution of relations, migration control has intensified. The NGOs have also denounced that the raids and detentions of migrants in Morocco have increased.
Related news
The prologue of the RAN this Tuesday and Wednesday was carried out by the deputies of the PSOE in the European Parliament, after voting against a resolution that accused Morocco of not respecting freedom of the press. The Spanish Socialists were among the few who said ‘no’ to this text that was approved by a large majority by the European Parliament and provoked the anger of Rabat. At the same time, several Moroccan political parties publicly thanked the socialists for their vote against.
The rhythm of these 11 months of reconciliation has been marked more by details and nuances than by grand gestures. Almost a year that has served to build and shape this new relationship between neighbors that will be staged at the High Level Meeting.