2023-07-16 00:40:45
In Spain, the electoral campaign for the early legislative elections of July 23 is entering its final stretch. A week before this big meeting with the polls, the People’s Party reiterates its promises to “revise” Pedro Sanchez’s support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara. A position expressed, Saturday, July 15, by the MEP Esteban González Pons, one of the trusted men of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in an interview granted to La Vanguardia.
“We are going to return to the relationship with Morocco that we had before the famous letter, of which no one knows why it was written, nor who wrote it, nor for what purpose. We are going to return to a policy with Morocco in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution and agreed to in the Spanish Parliament, and we are going to restore relations with Algeria,” he said. Last week, the leader of the PP reaffirmed his proposal to “return to the balance between Algeria, the Saharawi people and Morocco”.
When the PP criticized Sanchez’s support for the Polisario in 2021
Pons, one of the candidates to lead Spanish diplomacy in a possible PP government, refused to “consult the United States” before decreeing the “cancellation” of Pedro Sanchez’s decision on the Sahara. “Spanish policy towards Morocco is a Spanish affair and only needs to be discussed with the Spanish parliament,” he said in a patriotic tone. “I don’t think the Biden administration has a connection” with Sanchez’s support for the Moroccan autonomy initiative in the Sahara. “It has more to do with Pegasus stealing his cell phone information,” he added.
The promises of Feijóo and Pons are part of an electoral context where all shots are allowed to disorient the PSOE. Statements that contrast with the analysis made by their comrade from the PP, the MEP, José Margallo, former head of diplomacy (2011-2016), of the crisis in relations between Rabat and Madrid, following the hospitalization in April 2021 from the leader of the Polisario in Spain. “Pedro Sanchez did not grasp the international context. After Trump’s declaration (recognizing the Moroccanness of the Sahara, editor’s note), it was obvious that Moroccans were going to put pressure on all European states”, he explained in an interview with an Iberian media dating from May 2021.
“Spain must examine its position with regard to the Sahara in the light of the emerging geopolitical context after the declaration by the United States and the foreseeable movements of European countries. When circumstances change, I change my mind. We have to adapt to the new context. It is a problem which we must begin to think about and which must be solved,” insisted Margallo.
The pragmatic declarations of the last Foreign Minister from the People’s Party are still topical, the geostrategic context having not changed. Much to the chagrin of former Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya, the Biden administration has not revised the recognition of the Moroccanness of the Sahara, signed by former President Donald Trump on December 10, 2020. Better yet , several Europeans, including Germany and the Netherlands, have given their support to the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara, as Margallo had planned.
This week the bulletin “Penínsulas”, published by La Vanguardia, revealed that “the PP gave Rabat guarantees that nothing substantial would change” on the Sahara issue, once Feijóo was appointed Prime Minister.
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