While Algeria is trying to end a 19-month diplomatic quarrel with Spain, the formation of the new Sanchez government sounds like a new disappointment for El-Mouradia.
A government that gives pride of place to those who maintain a very cordial line with Morocco. Invested Thursday, November 16, 2023, for a new four-year term thanks to the support of 179 deputies, including those of the Catalan Independence party of Junts, Pedro Sanchez maintained, Monday, November 20, 2023, in their position most of the heavyweights of the outgoing Executive and where we therefore find many pro-Moroccans. “There was the letter from His Majesty the King to congratulate Mr. Sanchez. This is only positive, it will allow us to move forward in putting the strategic cooperation program into practice,” a Moroccan diplomatic source told Marocs Hebdo. Among the leaders of the old majority who are on good terms with Morocco and who we continue to find in government, we can cite the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, one of the main architects, according to analysts, of the alignment from March 2022 of Spain on the initiative for the negotiation of a status of autonomy in the Sahara region and the subsequent warming of relations between the two countries.
Security cooperation
But we can also mention the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, in charge during the earthquake that struck the Kingdom on September 8, 2023, and who had enabled quality collaboration between the Spanish authorities and their Moroccan counterparts, by participating in relief operations; the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, convinced of the vitality of bilateral security cooperation in matters of migration and the fight against terrorism and organized crime; finally, the Minister of the Economy, Nadia Calvino, who embodies a form of continuity in the consolidation of the strategic partnership in economic and commercial matters, initiated on the occasion of the 12th high-level meeting of February 2, 2023.
The secretary general of the Moroccan Center for Research on Globalization (NejMaroc) and doctoral student in political science and international relations at the University of Salamanca, Yassine El Yattioui, believes that Mr. Sanchez’s choices express a clear disappointment for Algiers, especially because of the reappointment of Mr. Albares “an influential man who believes that it is more relevant to develop ties with Morocco than with Algeria due to the historical ties between the two countries, the leadership of the Kingdom in the African continent but also in the Arab world”.
For our interlocutor, Algeria is going through a very bad time, is becoming more withdrawn after its failure to integrate the BRICS, and does not have the diplomatic weight to compete with Rabat. A rather violent boomerang for the Eastern neighbor, while the Algerians tried, by appointing a new ambassador to Madrid on November 16, 2023, to turn the page on a nineteen-month diplomatic quarrel with Spain, provoked by the Algerian regime after the historic decision of the Iberian kingdom to support the Moroccan autonomy plan. Has the time arrived for the Algerian ranks to understand that the anti-Moroccan strategy, made a priority, did not constitute a policy?
