Artículo World Politics Review, 30.03.2022 Alana Moceri, analista de RRII y profesora (IE School of Global and Public Affairs)
In mid-March, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent a letter to Moroccan King Mohamed VI, supporting Rabat’s plan to grant Western Sahara autonomy over its internal affairs, while remaining under Moroccan sovereignty. The move appeared to be an abrupt departure for Spain, which has maintained a position of careful neutrality over its former colony’s efforts to gain independence from Morocco for nearly 47 years.
When the Moroccan Foreign Ministry eventually made Sanchez’s support public, it provoked an uproar in Spain centered around two primary questions. First, Does this really constitute a major policy change for Spain, given that it has never explicitly ruled out the Moroccan autonomy plan first floated in 2007. Second, Why now, at a time when most European countries are scrambling to secure alternatives to Russian natural gas supplies? The move angered Algeria, which has long backed Western Sahara’s independence movement, the Polisario Front, and is Spain’s biggest supplier of natural gas.
Spain has carefully avoided taking a side in the conflict for decades. The territorial dispute dates back to 1976, when Spain ended its colonial rule over Western Sahara and Morocco stepped in to claim the territory, which is rich in phosphate reserves and controls lucrative fishing waters. Since then, Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara has been marked by intermittent conflict with the Polisario Front, which continues to fight for an independent state. In 1991, the United Nations brokered a cease-fire and passed a resolution calling for a future referendum on self-determination for the indigenous Sahrawi people to complete the process of decolonization. That hasn’t happened yet, and a recent uptick in violence in the territory has raised concerns of a return to full-fledged conflict.
With no progress toward a final resolution to the dispute or a vote on self-determination, Spain has maintained a position of careful neutrality. That has allowed it to avoid provoking Morocco—to which Spain has outsourced much of its border security to control migration to its two North African enclave territories, Ceuta and Melilla, both of which are surrounded by Moroccan territory—or Algeria, an important Spanish trading partner and gas supplier.
In this context, it’s hard to argue that Sanchez’s decision to support Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara doesn’t represent a departure from the long-standing Spanish foreign policy of “active neutrality.” That departure, though, is a subtle one: Spain still supports the U.N.-brokered settlement of this nearly 50-year-old dispute, but it has now formally recognized Morocco’s plan as the most viable way to do so. In a press conference held in Madrid shortly after Spain’s new position on the dispute became public, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares defended the move, calling Morocco’s plan “the most serious, realistic and credible basis for resolving the dispute” in Western Sahara.
But by allowing the story to emerge suddenly, rather than paving the way with an explanation of the rationale behind the decision, Madrid created not only a foreign policy tangle for itself, but also a squabble within the governing coalition.
Yolanda Diaz, deputy vice president and leader of Unidos Podemos, the junior party in Sanchez’s coalition, was apparently not included in the decision or informed of it before it was announced, adding more tension to what is already a difficult relationship between the ostensible partners. Diaz’s reaction was unsurprisingly negative, stating that the move “means abandoning the position of neutrality and the consensus of the resolutions of the United Nations.”
Nana Labat Rachid—the spokesperson for the presidency of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as the Polisario-administered part of Western Sahara is known—told the Algerian press that Madrid’s shifting position “does not change the legal status of Western Sahara, considered a non-autonomous territory” or “the will of the Saharawi people to build an independent state in all the occupied territories.” She added that the Polisario leadership believes the change in policy is the result of Moroccan “blackmail” in the form of a “constant threat to inundate Madrid with illegal immigrants.” Morocco has resorted to doing so as recently as May 2021, to register its disapproval of Madrid’s decision to allow a Polisario leader to seek medical treatment in Spain.
Abdullah Arabi, a delegate of the Polisario Front in Spain, echoed Rachid’s accusation in an interview with Spain’s National Radio, accusing Sanchez of “submitting to blackmail” while avoiding “the real solution to the conflict in the Sahara, which is the holding of a self-determination referendum.”
Sanchez’s Socialist Party has a history of walking a fine diplomatic line on the issue of Western Sahara, simultaneously maintaining Spain’s neutral position on the issue, while also pledging to respect the principle of self-determination for the Saharawi people, most recently in the party’s 2019 electoral program.
Despite this apparent about-face, former Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, also of the Socialist Party, defended Sanchez’s move in an interview with the Spanish daily El Pais, saying that “50 years have passed, and the problem is not resolved. This forces us to look for new paths.”
Zapatero also noted that Sanchez’s stance is not new, since he himself “supported [Morocco’s] plan in 2008, in 2009, in 2010 and in 2011.” He even took a swipe at Podemos, scoffing at those who criticize the move as realpolitik while refusing to budge from what he characterized as their moral, sentimental and ideological positions. “But this is not how conflicts are resolved, as history shows,” he said, adding that even if political agreement for Morocco’s plan for Western Saharan autonomy is secured, the Sahrawi people would still need to ratify it.
The question of whether the move represents a fundamental shift in Spanish policy ultimately comes down to wording. Madrid has gone from characterizing Rabat’s autonomy plan as “an option” to calling it “the best option.”
The rationale for the timing of Spain’s new policy is even less clear, though the geopolitical implications are potentially far more consequential.
Sanchez’s letter surprised many, but perhaps most of all Algeria, which has long heavily supported Western Sahara in its fight for independence with arms, training and $1 billion dollars in annual funding. Via official media, the Algerian government said that it had not been informed by the Spanish government ahead of the announcement. Madrid disputes this account, but Algeria’s anger was evident in its immediate decision to recall its ambassador in response to what it called Spain’s “historical betrayal” of the Saharawi people. About half of Spain’s natural gas comes from Algeria, so coming at a moment when Europe is seeking to wean itself off Russian gas, the timing has left many Spaniards scratching their heads.
In addition to the accusation that Sanchez is bending to Moroccan threats to unleash a wave of unauthorized immigrants onto Spain’s North African enclaves, there has also been some speculation that he was swayed by pressure from the U.S.
In late 2020, just before leaving office, former President Donald Trump gave Morocco a parting gift of recognizing its sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for Rabat normalizing its diplomatic relations with Israel. The Biden administration has not reversed the move, and in a visit to Rabat in early March, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said, “We continue to view Morocco’s autonomy plan as serious, credible and realistic.” These are the same words later echoed by Sanchez in his letter and Albares in his statement.
When pressed in an interview about the possible involvement of the United States in this decision, U.S. Ambassador Julissa Reynoso said that, while the U.S. supports “the position and role of the UN to advance a solution,” Morocco’s plan “should be considered.” She hastened to add, however, that “the position of the Spanish government is up to the Spanish government,” and not Washington.
Despite its anger over Madrid’s decision, it is unlikely that Algeria would cut natural gas supplies to Spain. “Algeria is a reliable country in terms of natural gas supply and intends to remain so," said a former executive of Sonatrach, the state producer of natural gas in an interview with Reuters. Others have noted that the Ukraine-Russia war has improved the company’s prospects of boosting exports to Europe. This increased demand will likely lead to higher prices—including for Spain.
Any further hikes in energy prices in Spain will be a tough blow for Sanchez. That, and a more strained relationship within his governing coalition, may be the biggest domestic tradeoffs for this policy shift. And while Sanchez’s move may have succeeded in aligning Spain with the U.S. and easing tensions with Morocco, it has alienated the players on the other side of the tug-of-war, including the Polisario Front and Algeria.
The Sahrawi people must also have a say over their fate, if based on nothing other than the formal U.N. plan for resolving the conflict. Unfortunately, it is looking increasingly unlikely that that they will.
