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Madrid, March 19 (EFE).- The Government trusts that the shift it has taken in its position on Western Sahara by supporting Morocco’s autonomy plan for the former Spanish colony will open a “stable” relationship between the two countries, in which the North African has promised to fight against irregular immigration.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, has considered that at this time it is essential that “we achieve stability” because “the world needs cooperation agreements between countries, working together for common problems”, as is the case of Spain and Morocco, irregular immigration.
In this way, he referred to the change in the neutral position that Spain has maintained for decades with respect to Western Sahara to go on to bet on the autonomy proposal presented by Morocco in 2007 as “the most serious, credible and realistic basis for the resolution of this dispute “, as the Moroccan Royal Cabinet advanced yesterday in a statement.
A new position that, according to Bolaños, “shows that we are going to have a good relationship with Morocco, that we are going to have a stable relationship, in which Morocco is committed to collaborating against human trafficking, against illegal immigration”, has highlighted.
However, this position has continued to generate discomfort, so much so that several political groups (EH Bildu, ERC, CUP, BNG, PNV, Junts, Pdecat, Más País, Compromis, Nueva Canarias and Canarian Coalition) will request the appearance of Pedro Sánchez on Monday in the Congress of Deputies to account for this decision.
Neither are his government partners, nor the opposition, nor the Polisario Front.
Thus, the IU spokesman in Congress and Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda, Enrique Santiago, has stressed that the Government cannot support any measure that is contrary to what the UN establishes on the process of decolonization of Western Sahara.
Santiago has told Efe that the Saharawi people “have the same right to independence and self-determination as the Ukrainian people or any other people in the world,” warning that Morocco “is maintaining a situation of colonial occupation.”
The president of the Catalan Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, considers the decision of the chief executive “an error with important consequences” and has called for a rectification and a return to the defense of a self-determination referendum.
En Comú Podem, in the words of its leader in Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, has also attacked the change of position and has been asked to comply with its electoral program and defend the call for a self-determination referendum in the region.
The same as the ERC spokesperson, Marta Vilalta: “Always at the side of the Saharawi people, their rights and their freedom. The solution for Western Sahara lies precisely in guaranteeing the right to self-determination, as dictated by UN resolutions” , has sentenced on Twitter.
The candidate for the presidency of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has warned of the “damages” that the “swerve” of the Government can cause to the country and has insisted that he will not admit “any ambiguity” in relation to the belonging to Spain of Ceuta and melilla.
In his opinion, this “drastic” change supposes not only a “recklessness”, but a “lack of respect” for the Spanish, who have had to find out about this “swerve” through Morocco, while he regretted that almost 50 years of agreements in foreign policy “have not survived Sánchez”.
While the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies (FAES), chaired by José María Aznar, has maintained in an editorial titled “Sánchez and the Sahara, neither substance nor form”, that the chief executive “reproduces the precedent” of former US President Donald Trump by attributing sovereignty over the Sahara to Morocco, also endangering Ceuta and Melilla and Algerian gas.
From Ciudadanos, the deputy mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, has assured that her party “would not have been trampled on, like Podemos”, to whom she has suggested leaving the Government “if she has a little pride”, and has criticized that the announcement of the turn was not announced by either the president or the foreign minister.
The new position of the Executive is not going to be supported by the PNV either; Its president, Andoni Ortuzar, has guaranteed that he will not support any proposal for the resolution of the Sahara conflict that does not go in the direction of respecting “the free decision of the Saharawi people.”
The delegate of the Polisario Front in Spain, Abdullah Arabi, has demanded that he “rectify” and “continue to assume that responsibility he has towards the Saharawi people and act accordingly” because Spanish society “does not understand that his Government, of the night in the morning, has abandoned the path of international legality”, he censured.
Abdullah Arabi told Efe that the Polisario Front “is analyzing this decision very carefully” and stressed that “obviously one of the first consequences” is that Spain “definitively excludes itself from any possibility of mediation between the parties or even in support to the efforts of the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy.
More conciliatory has been the president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, who considered “good news” the normalization of relations between Spain and Morocco and has asserted that, regarding the Sahara, any proposal must be accepted by both parties and always within the United Nations.
(c) EFE Agency