The telephone conversation maintained on Thursday by the King of Morocco and the President of the Government and Mohamed VI’s invitation to Pedro Sánchez so that go to Rabat in the next few days they answer, according to official Moroccan sources, to the desire to “inaugurate an unprecedented stage in relations between the two countries”. In short, they pursue restore good neighborly relations after the turn given by Madrid regarding the future of Western Sahara by supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory, canceling the crisis opened by the trip to Spain of Brahim Gali, leader of the Polisario Front, to be treated for covid, followed by the appearance in May of several thousand young people on the beach in Ceuta, mobilized in one way or another by the Moroccan authorities.
The contact established by Mohamed VI just 24 hours before the planned trip to Rabat by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, is not without meaning: it has led to the cancellation of the minister’s visit and has allowed the Alaouite monarch to set the tempo in the normalization of relations, something predictable, moreover, in a regime whose first political actor is the king. At the same time, the calendar makes it clear that behind the Moroccan initiative and the reestablishment of the good-neighbourly climate pursued by Spain, no less responsibility must be attributed to United States Diplomacy, through the visits in early March to Rabat and Algiers by the Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken this very week. Between the two, on March 14 there was news of Madrid’s change of focus in relation to the Sahara; now Sánchez will go to the palace after Blinken.
Nothing should be considered mere coincidence. For the NATO security apparatus, engaged in the war in Ukraine, it is important maintain a relaxed atmosphere on the south flank, without pending accounts, two of which could be the rarefied atmosphere on both sides of the Strait and a radical response from Algeria – interruption of the gas supply to Spain – due to its commitment to the Saharawi exile in Tindouf. With the added factor, not negligible at all, that the Algerian regime maintains a privileged relationship with Russia as it previously maintained with the Soviet Union, and the supply contracts signed by Sonatrach should not be considered unavoidable obligations in an environment of global crisis.
What now remains to be seen is if the personal involvement of Mohamed VI translates into higher effective security quotas for Ceuta and Melilla and the control of migratory flows it conforms to respect for human rights and the commitments made. Reviewing the list of disagreements in both matters makes it impossible for it not to prevail some degree of uncertainty in the relationship with a neighbor that is not always predictable, which feels extremely strengthened since in 2020 Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara in exchange for Morocco recognizing Israel. Because Blinken’s promise to support the efforts of Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy for the Sahara, forces Mohamed VI nothing in practice, and the appearance of the monarch in the reconciliation with Spain will only be valuable if it is translated in concrete and specific agreements that free Ceuta and Melilla from shocks.