Why Spain’s new Sahrawi citizenship law matters to Morocco
The new citizenship bill for Sahrawis touches a sensitive fault line in Madrid’s ties with Rabat.
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The new citizenship bill for Sahrawis touches a sensitive fault line in Madrid’s ties with Rabat.
Spain’s parliament backs citizenship for Sahrawis amid tense relations with Morocco after the Ceuta crossing.
After lower house approval, the bill to grant tens of thousands of Sahrawis citizenship now goes to the Spanish Senate.
Over 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta, sparking a humanitarian crisis and political tensions between Spain and Morocco.
Delano D'Souza is pleased to welcome Alana Moceri, International Relations Professor at IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs. She sees the Ceuta migrant crossings as a both a domestic and international crisis. The scale and speed of the crossings point toward what she calls a form of "deliberate permissiveness" at the border and Pedro Sánchez's restrained response is understood less as exoneration of Morocco than as pragmatic international relations. Sánchez faces pressure at home from political opponents able to frame migration as an existential crisis. She extends the argument further by showing how such episodes become politically valuable after they occur: Spain's far right can amplify the language of "invasion," while hostile foreign information ecosystems can exploit an already volatile controversy without necessarily having created it. The result is a crisis in which the border is simultaneously a geopolitical instrument, a domestic political weapon, and an information battleground.
Spain has found no evidence to conclude that July's deadly border rush from Morocco into its enclave of Ceuta was orchestrated by Moroccan authorities, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday, countering allegations in a Spanish police report. Speaking in parliament, Sanchez responded to claims in the report that emerged this week suggesting the entry of over 70,000 people into Ceuta was not a spontaneous migration but a planned effort to overwhelm border controls.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has told lawmakers that there is no evidence the Ceuta migrant crisis was orchestrated by Morocco's government. His remarks come a day after tens of thousands of people took part in protests across the country to criticize his handling of the migrant influx. He acknowledged that Ceuta was both a humanitarian crisis and an administrative challenge. But he rejected the findings of a police report that seemed to lay blame on Morocco. FRANCE 24's Sarah Morris reports from Madrid, Spain.
Tens of thousands rallied across Spain protesting the government's handling of the Ceuta migrant crisis.
Hundreds of migrants are reluctant to the official reception centres, following Madrid's announcement of its intention to deport the migrants who arrived in July via the border with Morocco.
Spain's government has approved more than 300 million euros in additional aid for its North African exclave of Ceuta. Madrid said the funding is aimed at supporting "all fronts" as it struggles to accommodate thousands of migrants who entered the territory last month.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says there is no evidence that Moroccan authorities were involved in the sudden arrival of more than 70,000 migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta last month.