This Tuesday, the president has spoken on the phone with the head of Government of the Kingdom of Morocco, Aziz Akhannouch, as announced on X (formerly Twitter). “We have agreed on the importance of the friendship between Spain and Morocco. Therefore, we want to promote the bilateral agenda already agreed and explore the new opportunities this renewed relationship offers. We will also promote a closer relationship between Morocco and the European Union,” Sánchez wrote.

It is the first known contact with Rabat after he obtained the investiture thanks to the support of the independence groups on November 16.

A legislature marked by Morocco

Spain’s rapprochement with Morocco, planned in the second part of the last legislature, was reflected in a joint roadmap signed at the High Level Meeting in February of this year. Dozens of bilateral agreements in different areas (economy, migration or culture) of which only the general outlines are known and which, for the moment, have not produced the concrete results that were expected.

Pedro Sánchez managed to make Morocco restore diplomatic normality with SpainAfter a year of retaliation for having provided medical care on Spanish soil to Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Sahrawi Polisario Front and enemy of Rabat. To do this, he had to turn around the position of neutrality of Spain towards the disputed territory. Sánchez assured the Moroccan monarch Mohamed VI that the plan to give autonomy to the Sahara within the Kingdom was the “most serious, realistic and credible” to solve the half-century dispute.

The customs of Ceuta and Melilla are still not operational, despite the fact that Minister José Manuel Albares had committed to this. It is also not known what will happen to the airspace over Western Sahara, controlled until now by Spain. Not even with the layout of the waters off the Canary Islands, which has disputed areas. Likewise, the meeting that Mohamed VI promised to Pedro Sánchez, after standing him down at the High Level Meeting in February, has not taken place.

The European courts are waiting to confirm shortly the previous decision to suspend the agreement of the EU with Morocco on fishing, from which Spanish ships benefited, because it included capture in Sahrawi waters without the consent of the Polisario Front.

Boost to Gibraltar

Spain is also trying to promote another of the agreements frozen by the political cycle, the one related to Gibraltar. The Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Albareshas had his first meeting with his British counterpart, the newcomer to the position and former Prime Minister David Cameron. There has been no specific announcement, except the commitment to continue negotiating. Albares has reiterated, as he said in December of last year, that the Spanish proposal is the one that London already has on the table. “The ball is in their court,” said the head of Spanish diplomacy.

The meeting has focused practically and exclusively on the Gibraltar Agreement, according to the minister. “The last aspects that separate us from being able to have a definitive agreement are, for example, the formula for joint use of the airport,” Albares stressed. “We are so close in those points of view that what remains are specific and specific aspects. Most of the agreement is“.

United Kingdom and the European Union, representing Spain and with the participation of Gibraltarhave been negotiating for two years how to manage the passage of people and goods through the Separation Fence, after Brexit.

The maxim is not to enter into questions of sovereignty and try to create an area of ​​shared prosperity. The minister assures that both have given instructions for the technical teams to resume conversations that have been paralyzed in recent months. “The decision should not be delayed any longer because it is a situation that is absolutely transitory,” the minister concluded.