Why did Madrid succumb to the conditions of Rabat and changed its position on the Sahara?

Three parties were shocked by the transformation of the Spanish position towards the Sahara, because they did not believe that the Rabat papers in pressure would push Spain to change its political creed. Practically political support for the thesis of self-determination in the Algerian concept. The Polisario Front, Algeria, and part of the Spanish political, security and military elites.

The assessment of the Polisario and its custodian Algeria is that the Rabat pressure papers, even if they reach a level of force or “blackmail” in the Algerian term, are not equivalent to the papers of Algeria, which depends on gas. Spain and Europe. The shock of the political elites, socialist and left, came from two sides: the first was that Madrid’s political doctrine would change from the desert by the left socialist elites under the reality of Moroccan pressure, and the second was that Madrid would present a precious gift to Morocco, at a time when the transformations of the international and regional context were proceeding in the direction of weakening his position. As for the security and military elites, their position remained dependent on the location of Ceuta and Melilla from the agreement between Rabat and Madrid, and the debate over the gains and challenges, from the form in which Morocco will deal with the issue of clandestine immigration, as well as security cooperation in the issue of combating terrorism and cross-border crime.

The most hard-line elites, or rather the most conservative, and if they understood this transformation and its motives, they still maintained their fears about the issue of increasing Moroccan armament, and the development of its alliances with the Senior Club, the possibility of using the Catalan separatist card.

However, with the optimism of the blessed elites to turn the page on the tension with Morocco, and the pessimism of the shocked and conservative elites, the question that remains open is the reasons for Madrid changing its position, and whether the situation was ready, at least from the side of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was only waiting for the Spanish interior to prepare for it, As expected in a number of our previous articles? Or did new variables occur that affected Madrid's assessments and prompted its ruling elites to expedite this agreement?

An analysis of the speech contained in Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's letter to King Mohammed VI does not provide all the explanatory data, but the language in which it was formulated was not entirely devoid of specific clues. The letter focused on the correlative relationship between Morocco and Spain on the issue of security, development and common interests, and talks about joint commitments between the two countries, and a pledge to “refrain from all unilateral action.” It also talks about joint action to address common challenges (managing migrant flows in the Mediterranean Mediterranean and Atlantic).

It is clear that Madrid's vision places among its priorities the answer to security challenges, in particular the flow of migration, not only across the Mediterranean, but also across the Atlantic.

The Spanish left-wing press spoke of the absence of any reference to Ceuta and Melilla, while the Spanish press in support of Madrid’s shift focused on an important Spanish victory, which was achieved by obligating Morocco to “refrain from any unilateralism,” interpreting the phrase as referring to the behavior of the Moroccan authorities that used the immigration paper, and allowed Thousands of immigrants flooded into Ceuta last summer.

This phrase was read in reverse, whether by the Moroccan press, or even by the critical or conservative Spanish elites. That is, it is a Spanish commitment to Morocco, not to repeat the incident that caused tension in the relationship between the two countries. The Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as long as it confirmed that the cause of the tension in relations is Spain receiving the separatist leader on its territory without consultation, coordination, or even informing the Moroccan side.

The news that leaked after the royal communiqué of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s message was published, talked about the royal palace’s delay in publishing the message for days, which is given - if true - which means that the text of the message may have been reformulated by Madrid, so that it becomes a framework agreed upon, to turn the page of tension to restore relations between the two countries.

What reinforces this is that the letter did not include any phrase that could be understood as Morocco’s acceptance of the situation of the Spanish occupation of Ceuta and Melilla, but rather included a general phrase, talking about working to “ensure the stability and territorial integrity of the two countries.” The essence of Sanchez's message is that Spain has placed winning the security bet and restoring the relationship between the two countries, in exchange for changing its position on the Sahara. But if Madrid's vision is summed up in this equation, what justified the delay in the situation for so long? And what were the variables that made her convinced that the price of winning this bet would have to pass through changing her position on the desert?

There are indications that lead to the conviction that the change in Madrid’s position on the Sahara actually took place at the moment when the relationship between the two countries was strained, and the dangers of the security challenge rose after the hard positions taken by the Moroccan Foreign Ministry regarding Europe’s way of dealing with Morocco, and how its relationship to the issue of immigration is represented. The Moroccan Foreign Ministry, emphasizing the concept of partnership, and its mutual requirements between partners, and emphasized in more than one speech that the problem of migration is not a problem of transit countries, but rather a problem of countries of origin and countries of arrival as well, and that Morocco cannot accept playing the role of the gendarme, in the absence of The commitment of his partners to defend his vital interests.

The explanation that we presented in our previous articles indicates the early maturation of the Spanish position, that is, with the dismissal of Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya from her post, and the appointment of Jose Manuel Alparis in her place. This diplomatic official emphasized on more than one occasion that Madrid must build the relations of the century The twenty with Rabat, which is sufficient language to emphasize the maturity of the situation, and the conviction of the Spanish Foreign Ministry of the need to change the traditional political doctrine of Madrid towards the Sahara, and that what it needed was only time and calm to convince the interior, or rather, to put the political, security and military elites in front of the disastrous effects of the tense relations with Morocco .

And if this explanation is valid, then what were the variables that helped the Spanish Foreign Ministry succeed in the process of convincing these elites, or at least the part that influences them?

The answer to that is inevitably found in Rabat's negotiating papers, and how it succeeded in achieving this decisive diplomatic victory in the history of its national cause.

The Polisario, and its patron, Algeria, in which the speech reached the point of describing the Spanish position as treason, tended to explain this as “the blackmail practiced by the Makhzen” against Madrid, meaning that it explained the matter, with the Rabat security paper, and the economic blockade of Ceuta and Melilla (the closure of the crossings, the endowment final smuggling).

But in depth, at least as it appears through the official media, it has not yet understood that this shift from Madrid comes in the context of the Russian war on Ukraine, fraught with the crisis of energy supplies, and the growing demand for Algeria, as a main resource for Europe, and perhaps as a partial alternative Possible Russian supplies of gas.

There are indications that emerged a few days before the publication of the message of the Spanish Prime Minister that needs to be analyzed and summarized in two main parts, the first, which is related to the dynamism of European visits to Algeria, and the second, the emergence of an active dynamism on the part of the “Sound Energy” British company specialized in Gas exploration in Morocco, and its partner the National Institute of Hydrocarbons and Minerals, this company announced at the beginning of March the extension of the deadline for fulfilling the terms of the deal to supply gas from the “Tandara” field in Morocco for another 3 months, and then announced in a press statement issued on 14 In March, an agreement was reached to connect a pipeline to the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline with the office.

The interpretation that we tend to is that Algeria did not deal intelligently with European pressures on the gas issue, and that Madrid no longer trusted its commitments to secure the agreed upon quantities of gas due to the frequent interruptions in the Med-Gas pipeline, which prompted it to search for new suppliers (the United States of America), and that Rabat Algeria's rejection of the European request to restart the Maghreb-European line exploited, to put forward new, alternative ideas in this matter. We do not know specifically whether they relate to the important reserves that were found in the Tendrara field and whether they will be directed to export yet in the next few months, or with serious Spanish involvement Is it in projects to extend gas pipelines from Nigeria to Europe via Morocco, or in huge projects in the Sahara, that open an important gateway for Spanish commercial penetration into the depths of Africa?