It is pure coincidence that there should be yet another bout of the traditional saber battling between Spain and Morocco over the former’s remaining territories in North Africa just when the UK offers Madrid a significant compromise over Gibraltar. But it is a coincidence that puts Spain in less than flattering light. It looks as if it is trying to have its cake and eat it. There is an obvious similarity between the case of Gibraltar and that of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the various Spanish-run islands of the Moroccan coast. Spain regards Gibraltar, which it ceded to the UK in 1708, as a colony which, the era of colonialism now over, should be handed back. Morocco looks at the Spanish possessions the same way. Spain, however, does not see things that way. What it has on the North African coast is its; what Britain has on the Spanish coast, just opposite Ceuta, should be its as well.
This refusal to treat like as like serves only to stir up resentment in Rabat. It has been following the Gibraltar negotiations with the keenest interest and is not going to sit back and let Madrid gain advantage on the Rock without at the very least letting everyone else know that something equivalent needs to be agreed over Spanish territories on its doorstep.
The resentment is growing. Coming on top of a long list of differences over illegal immigration, drugs trafficking, the Western Sahara, and Morocco’s decision to ban Spanish fishing boats from its waters, it is slowly poisoning relations between the two neighbors, to the extent that, last October, Morocco recalled its Madrid ambassador. But now the difference is beginning to turn nasty. On Thursday, in response to Spanish naval exercises around the Spanish-controlled outcrop of Nekkour, opposite the port of Al Hocima, Morocco has established a military post on an uninhabited islet near Ceuta claimed by both it and Spain, and Spain has responded by reinforcing its military presence on the Chafarinas islands off the coast of western Morocco.
Such jingoistic behavior is not going to solve anything. Dialogue is the only way to solve their differences; not threats, especially threats involving troops and gunboats. Both sides need to start talking to each other.
But it is Spain that is being the most rigid and blinkered in its attitude. Its attitude over the parallel issue of Gibraltar is beyond understanding. Despite what is a generous UK offer, it still demands full sovereignty despite not having a legal leg to stand upon. It ceded the territory in perpetuity. Its argument — that was once part of Spain and must be part of Spain again — has no validity. The reality, however, is that Gibraltar is no more Spanish today than Seville is Arab or Istanbul Greek. Clocks can be turned back, but not three hundred years. If they could, it would throw international borders into chaos.
Where Spain is being most unreasonable is in its insistence that the wishes of the Gibraltarians — overwhelmingly opposed to Spanish rule — be ignored. It is a demand that it may live to regret. If their wishes can be so easily dismissed, can Madrid have any complaint if Rabat says that those of the people in Melilla and Ceuta, who want to remain Spanish, must likewise be ignored?
