Spain's PM visits Morocco to boost mended ties

BARCELONA - Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez travels to Rabat on Wednesday along with 12 ministers before a meeting with Moroccan government officials, as part of the European country’s strategy to improve historically complex relations with its neighbour across the Strait of Gibraltar.

The visit comes 10 months after Sanchez went to meet Moroccan King Mohammed VI and put an end to a diplomatic crisis that had erupted in 2021 regarding Morocco's disputed territory of Western Sahara. During that meeting, Sanchez declared “a new phase of bilateral relations” with Morocco, an important partner with the European Union in fighting extremism and aiding the bloc's irregular migration policies.

Sanchez is flying south again on Wednesday and will attend a forum of business leaders from both countries in Rabat. On Thursday, he will sit down with Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, a billionaire businessman who won a 2021 election.

Sanchez’s agenda doesn't include another meeting with the Moroccan king, with whom he shared the Iftar meal to break the day’s fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last April in the highlight of their reconciliation.

Sanchez’s office said that the prime minister instead had a phone conversation with the monarch in which they agreed that the meeting would “contribute to consolidating this new era in the relations between Morocco and Spain.” It added that Sanchez accepted the invitation by the king to make another official visit to Rabat at an unspecified date.

Moroccans make up the single largest foreign community with 800,000 residents in Spain, and important economic ties unite the neighbours which are separated by just 13 kilometers (8 miles) of water at the nearest point.

But relations between Spain and Morocco were severely damaged in May 2021 after Spain allowed the leader of the Polisario Front, which has waged a low-intensity armed rebellion seeking the Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco, to receive medical treatment for COVID-19 in Spain.

Morocco responded by relaxing its border controls around Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta and thousands of people crossed over into the city. Tensions remained high until Sanchez did an about-face on Spain’s long-standing position on Western Sahara by backing Rabat’s proposal to give it more autonomy as long as it remains unquestionably under Moroccan control. Madrid maintains that the people of Western Sahara must decide their future via a referendum.

Sanchez paid a high price for moving closer to Morocco.

His shift on Western Sahara angered Algeria, a backer of the Polisario Front and major natural gas supplier to Spain.

Now, Sanchez is aiming to reap some benefits after last year’s return to diplomatic normalcy.

This will be first meeting since 2015 with such a large delegation of ministries represented. Sanchez is taking along his ministers in charge of the economy, energy, foreign affairs, security and policing, agriculture, commerce, transport and migration, among others.

Thursday's meeting between the governments is expected to produce several agreements between ministries and to favour business growth, including the opening of customs offices at the border crossings for Ceuta and its sister exclave, Melilla, which Morocco has never officially recognized as Spanish territories. Melilla’s customs office was closed by Morocco in 2018, while Ceuta has never had one.

Spain is the largest foreign investor in Morocco, accounting for a significant chunk of all foreign investments, making economic cooperation a top priority for the Moroccan government. Morocco is Spain’s third most important non-EU commercial partner after the United States and Britain.

Morocco, in similar fashion to Turkey and other countries in North Africa, has reaped economic benefits from the EU in exchange for curbing irregular immigration to Spain. That, however, has not stopped thousands of migrants and refugees, including young Moroccans looking for a better future in Europe, from attempting a dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean, or a perilous Atlantic journey to the Canary Islands.