Spain: Pedro Sanchez Plans To Visit Morocco In November

Rabat – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expected to lead a high-level delegation to Rabat at the end of November.

Spanish digital newspaper Okdiario reported the news on Friday. The outlet quoted government sources stating that “the high-level meeting between Spain and Morocco constitutes a transcendental meeting for the development of the deep and dense relations of friendship and cooperation that exist between two strategic partners such as Spain and Morocco.”

The last bilateral high-level meeting was held in 2018, the newspaper added, a scheduled meeting in 2020 was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The same source indicated that representatives of Podemos, a Spanish populist party known for their support of Polisario separatists, co-founded by Pablo Iglesias, are not going to participate in the bilateral meeting.

In April, Iglesias described the Spanish official endorsement of Morocco’s Autonomy Plan for the Western Sahara dispute as an “immoral” and “ineffective” decision.

Sanchez’s government has faced some criticism at home and abroad due to the changes in foreign policy, particularly from the Algerian regime and European sympathizers with the separatist Polisario Front. Still, both Sanchez, and Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares have on numerous occasions reiterated their country’s new stance on the Western Sahara dispute and called for the consolidation of diplomatic and economic relations with Rabat.

While details on the agenda of the November high-level meeting are yet to be unveiled, the Moroccan and Spanish diplomats are expected to tackle a series of topics including the consolidation of security cooperation to limit the flow of irregular migrants to Melilla, Ceuta, and the Canary Islands.

The Western Sahara dispute is also likely to be at the center of the bilateral consultations. Diplomatic momentum on the dispute continues to move in Morocco’s favor, especially after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this week submitted his annual report on the dispute to the Security Council. The report provided new insights after his Personal Envoy for Western Sahara Staffan de Mistura recently paid visits to Morocco, Algeria, and Spain.

The report urged “all concerned parties” – including Algeria and Mauritania – “to engage in a good faith” in peace talks in order to find diplomatic and sustainable solutions to end the long-standing dispute and bring peace to the region.