We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Frenemy face-off at the World Cup: Morocco vs. Spain
It's just a soccer game. Or maybe there’s more to it.
On Tuesday, underdog Morocco takes on 2010 champion Spain at the Qatar World Cup in what one might frame as a battle between “neighbors” in Africa and Europe, separated by barely 9 miles of the Mediterranean Sea and with a long-fraught political relationship that’s seen some recent twists and turns.
And there’s a bigger geopolitical story that goes beyond the two kingdoms.
Territorial disputes have always made Morocco-Spain ties, to put it mildly, complicated. Morocco resents Spain for not handing over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, which Rabat claims as part of its territory and is rich in fish and minerals.
Morocco also has a beef with Spain over Ceuta and Melilla, two centuries-old Spanish enclaves inside Morocco and the last vestiges of European sovereignty in mainland Africa. (Fun fact: 20 years ago, the two sides almost went to war over a rock in the Strait of Gibraltar inhabited by … goats.)
The bilateral tensions have two major spillover effects with EU-wide implications.
First, Morocco has been accused of weaponizing sub-Saharan African migrants when it tells its border guards to stand by and "let" asylum-seekers try to scale the border fences of Ceuta and Melilla, which is EU sovereign territory. Rabat does this whenever Spain triggers it over Western Sahara: In May 2021, Madrid had to deploy the army to help defend the border from an influx of thousands of migrants after the Spanish government allowed a leader of the Polisario Front — a militant group that seeks independence for Western Sahara — to get medical treatment in Spain.
This is not just a Morocco-Spain problem. Once the asylum-seekers are on EU soil, they are free to travel to other EU countries — potentially unleashing a migration crisis across the entire bloc.
Second, whatever happens between Morocco and Spain is closely watched next door in natural-gas rich Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front and has kept the border with its western neighbor closed since 1994 to protest Morocco’s partial “occupation” of Western Sahara.
In late April, the Algerians first threatened to cut off gas supplies to the Spanish after Madrid announced it would resell some of that gas to Morocco. And when PM Pedro Sánchez went a step further by ending Spain's long-held neutrality on Western Sahara to ward off another migrant crisis, Algeria responded by selling more gas to Italy. Algerian gas deliveries to Spain are now down by half from a year ago and the US has become Madrid’s top seller.
Algeria's strong pushback to Spain's pro-Rabat gestures is a heads-up to the EU: Kicking the Russian gas habit is not risk-free. The more leverage an alternative supplier gets, the more inclined it'll be to turn on a dime and move to kill a contract if political feathers get ruffled.
So, what’s the current state of bilateral ties and what does the future hold? “Spain and Morocco are now on a honeymoon, but this is only a parenthesis before the next crisis, which Morocco will decide when to launch,” says Ignacio Cembrero, a veteran Spanish journalist and expert on Morocco-Spain relations.
The next big development will come, he adds, when the Spanish government follows the US in recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, as the Trump administration did in December 2020 in exchange for Rabat joining the US-brokered Abraham Accords. “That’s what Morocco wants.”
Back to the soccer ... on the pitch, Spain is the favorite.La Roja has a young squad led by FC Barcelona playmaker Pedri that excels at its signature tiki-taka passing game. Still, the Atlas Lions have plenty of talent too and will surely give their northern neighbors a run for their money.
Yet off the field, the stakes are higher for Morocco. If it wins and becomes the first Arab country to reach the World Cup quarter-finals, Moroccans will go crazy at home — and in Spain, where some 800,000 of them live.
Let’s just hope the celebrations don’t turn into the violent riots that erupted across Belgian and Dutch cities when Morroco upset Belgium in the first round.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
Should NATO watch its southern flank?
As NATO leaders gather this week in Madrid for their first summit since the war in Ukraine began, they will talk mainly about the immediate bogeyman, Russia, and the long-term strategic rival, China. Meanwhile, host Spain is seizing the opportunity to get the alliance to pay at least some attention to Africa and parts of the Middle East, where Russia and jihadists are stirring up trouble that could impact Mediterranean countries.
Wait, doesn’t NATO have enough on its plate? Certainly, but Spain and Italy — and to a lesser extent France and the UK — have long warned that political instability in the Sahel and elsewhere has ripple effects across Europe in the form of jihadism that triggers massive waves of African migration.
The Spanish have a clear interest in all of this. Days before the summit, 23 migrants died while trying to jump the border fence to enter Melilla, one of Spain’s two enclaves in Morocco. Although in the past the Moroccans have weaponized migration as leverage over the Spanish, the two sides have been chummier lately since Madrid acknowledged Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara earlier this year.
This time, though, the Moroccan border guards didn't stand down. They were overwhelmed.
Spain claims that the unprecedented wave of migrants has a lot to do with the pandemic-induced economic and food crises aggravated by the war in Ukraine, which has, for instance, led to a recent surge in migrant arrivals to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Dario Cristiani, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund and the Rome-based Istituto Affari Internazionali, doesn’t buy Madrid’s argument.
The war in eastern Europe, he says, "will not unleash a new, bigger wave; there will be always waves of migration from Africa" due to massive population growth, water scarcity, and climate change, so migrants will still want to flee the continent "no matter what happens in Ukraine."
Spain and Italy also worry about Russia’s growing mercenary activity in Africa, especially in fragile countries like Libya and Mali.
Madrid and Rome fear that — emboldened by their success in Syria — Vladimir Putin might use mercs employed by the shadowy Wagner Group to perpetuate instability and unleash another migrant crisis on Europe as payback for sanctions — similar to what his pal Alexander Lukashenko did with the EU late last year.
NATO should definitely keep an eye on what the Russians are up to in Africa, says Marc Pierini, a former EU diplomat and visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.
Wagner’s soldiers of fortune, he explains, have become "very visible" in Libya, where they now enjoy de-facto control of the Jufra air base near Sirte. If the Russian military someday decides to take over from the mercs and deploy ballistic missiles there, Pierini notes that "the defense of Europe would be in a totally new situation."
So, what does Spain actually want from NATO? Officially, Madrid is asking for stuff like more intelligence-sharing and better policing of “hybrid threats” related to migration.
(Although they probably won’t say it out loud, especially as summit hosts, what the Spanish would really like is for NATO to revise its charter to place the enclaves in Morroco under Article 5 protection, so Rabat will back off.)
The thing is, its southern flank has never been a priority for NATO, according to Cristiani.
Spain and Italy, he adds, might better pitch the alliance by arguing that the Russian merc presence in Mali, Libya, or Syria is all "part of the same arc of crisis" as Putin's war in Ukraine. But they should do so carefully — unlike what he called Spain's “shoddy” attempt to blame Russia for a recent spat with Algeria.
Finally, if NATO is too busy, who should step in to help out with migration to the EU? Perhaps Brussels.
"Just as the EU pays Turkey to do this with Syrian refugees that want to cross into Europe, the EU — and not Spain alone — should pay Morocco to do this," says Mark Katz, professor of politics and government at George Mason University. "In other words, the problem Spain faces with refugees from Africa should not just be considered a NATO issue, but an EU one as well."
A protester is seen with face paint reading "cancel lèse-majesté law" during the protest. Pro-democracy protesters gathered at Ratchaprasong Junction in demand of Prayut Chan-O-Cha resignation and lèse-majesté law (Thai Criminal Code section 112) cancellation.
What We’re Watching: Thai monarchy ruling, weed vs coke in Colombia, Moroccan olive twig
Don't mess with the Thai king. A Thai court has ruled that calls by three youth protest leaders to reform the monarchy are an unconstitutional attempt to overthrow the country's political system. Although the verdict is symbolic and won't carry a jail term, it paves the way for the activists to be tried for treason, which is punishable by death. But it's also a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the ruling is a clear warning shot to the youth-led protest movement that last year shocked Thailand by for the first time openly questioning the role of the king, a taboo subject until then. On the other, actually executing protest leaders could turn them into martyrs, driving more of their followers into the streets to face off against government forces. Regardless, the controversial notion of curbing the king's powers is now at the very center of Thai politics: it's the inevitable future for millennials and zoomers, a third-rail issue for mainstream political parties, and a non-starter for the all-powerful Rama X himself.
Can medical weed bring down the high of Colombia's cocaine industry? After decades of trying to stamp out a coca industry that has fueled violence and conflict, the Colombian government is looking to cannabis for help. President Iván Duque wants to boost the cultivation of medical marijuana as a more lucrative, eco-friendly, and less socially-damaging substitute crop for Colombian farmers. Duque, a strong opponent of decriminalizing drugs, made clear that the strategy would apply only to growing cannabis for medical rather than recreational use. He also continues to advocate aerial spraying as a means of eradicating coca crops, despite questions about the effectiveness and environmental impact of this approach. Coca cultivation in Colombia has reached record highs in recent years, as drug cartels have benefited from the poor implementation of Colombia's historic 2016 peace deal with FARC rebels, taking over drug-producing areas of the country that those militants once controlled.
An olive twig from Morocco to Algeria. Tensions between Morocco and Algeria have flared recently, over Algiers' support for separatists in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that Morocco considers its own territory. For half a century now, the militants of the Polisario Front have been waging a struggle for independent control over the region, a resource-rich swath of land blessed with plentiful fisheries that lies along a critical trade route for Morocco. Algeria has long backed the rebels as a way to needle Morocco. Earlier this year, Western Sahara figured prominently in a dispute between Morocco and Spain over migration flows to Europe. But in August, Algeria cut ties with Rabat over the issue, and last week accused Moroccan forces of killing three Algerian civilians in the area. Against that backdrop, Morocco now says it wants to "turn the page" on tensions with Algeria. But it also says that its demand for sovereignty over Western Sahara — only recognized by the US — is "legitimate" and non-negotiable. That's not quite an olive branch, but we'll call it a twig and see how this plays out.Morocco makes a play for Western Sahara
Morocco and Spain have spent the past two weeks at loggerheads over Madrid allowing the leader of the independence movement for Western Sahara, a former Spanish territory claimed by Morocco, to get medical treatment for COVID in a Spanish hospital. Polisario Front chief Brahim Ghali has now left the country, but the Moroccans are still furious.
Indeed, Rabat's initial response was to open its border gates to allow a deluge of thousands of migrants to overwhelm the Spanish border in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast. Although that crisis ended in a matter of days, the wider issue that caused it in the first place remains unresolved.
Why does Morocco care so much about this sparsely populated desert territory, and why is it now pushing so hard to gain full control of Western Sahara?
First, a bit of history. Western Sahara, long populated by nomadic tribes, was administered by Spain from 1884 until 1975. Morocco and the native Sahrawis, represented by the Polisario Front, later fought a bloody war that ended in a 1991 UN-backed ceasefire agreement which called for an independence referendum that Rabat has largely ignored. Since then, Western Sahara has been in limbo — Morocco now controls 80 percent of the territory, including the coastline, and the Sahrawis control a thin strip bordering Algeria and Mauritania.
But that small chunk of land is immensely important for the Moroccans because it's the main route for overland trade with the rest of Africa via Mauritania. Morocco's much longer border with regional rival Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front and hosts thousands of Sahrawi refugees, has been closed for almost 30 years.
Morocco also needs Western Sahara's minerals, mainly its phosphate rock riches. Including the disputed territory's estimated deposits — which the Moroccans are already mining in the areas they control — Morocco accounts for three-quarters of the world's reserves of this scarce mineral, used to make synthetic fertilizer for agriculture.
And then there's fish. A lot of fish. So much that Morocco is eager to share it with EU fishing vessels, for lucrative fees. But a wide-ranging trade agreement between Morocco and the European Union has been held up since 2018 because of a dispute over access to waters off Western Sahara. Moreover, if there's fish, perhaps there are also untapped offshore oil and gas.
Thank you, Donald Trump. During the last weeks of the Trump administration, the US became the first UN member state to recognize Morocco's claim over Western Sahara, reportedly in exchange for normalizing ties with Israel. Recognition by the world's most powerful nation was a huge win for Rabat, which now feels emboldened to test how hard it can push other countries to do the same, particularly Spain and the broader EU. And Morocco now seems to have the upper hand, as Turkey often does when it successfully weaponizes migrants to get what it wants from the Europeans.
The problem for Spain and the EU is that they need Morocco more than Morocco needs them. For Spain, Moroccan cooperation is crucial to stemming the flow of African migrants to its borders. The EU, for its part, is deeply concerned about those migrants using Spain as a springboard to enter other EU countries. Brussels also wants to sign a trade deal with Rabat that includes Western Saharan fisheries to offset fishing rights lost to Brexit.
Morocco is presumably happy to help protect the Spanish border, and let EU vessels fish in their waters, and get hard cash in return. But the money is not enough anymore. For Rabat, full sovereignty over Western Sahara is as much of an existential issue as illegal immigration is to Madrid and Brussels.
Looking ahead. Spain's current leftwing government can't afford another migrant crisis that'll give more ammunition to the anti-immigration, far-right Vox party. And the EU has learned its lesson from dealing with Turkey on refugees. Morocco's leverage over both means that Sahrawis' pursuit of self-determination is all but assured to take a backseat for the Europeans.Spanish soldiers stand guard at El Tarajal beach, on the Spanish side of the fence between the Spanish-Moroccan border, as Moroccans stay at the other side of the fence, after thousands of migrants swam across this border on Monday, in Ceuta, Spain.
What We’re Watching: Morocco-Spain border crisis, Belarus police can target protesters, no beef from Argentina
Morocco punishes Spain with... migrants: Spain has sent in the army to help defend the border in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast, after more than 8,000 migrants crossed over in just two days. Spanish border guards say that Morocco facilitated the migrants' departure, most of whom are Moroccan nationals, to punish Madrid for meddling in Morocco's internal affairs over Western Sahara. Last month, Madrid allowed the leader of the pro-independence Polisario Front to seek treatment for COVID in a Spanish hospital, infuriating Rabat, which claims the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara as part of its territory. The Moroccans, for their part, deny involvement in the mass exodus, and on Wednesday closed the border. However, that seems questionable given that Morocco has traditionally overreacted to any hint of Spanish support for Western Saharan independence. But Spain won't want to rock the boat too much because it needs Morocco's help to stop African migrants flooding into Ceuta and Melilla, the other Spanish enclave in Morocco. If the spat is not resolved soon, the European Union may have to step in to mediate because once the migrants are on EU soil, they are free to travel to other EU countries.
Belarusian police given go-ahead to shoot protesters: Seven months after Belarusians took to the streets in huge numbers to protest Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus' strongman president, who is widely believed to have rigged last year's national elections, Lukashenko has signed a bill allowing police to shoot protesters in the street. The new law is part of a broader package of legislation passed by the lower house in April that aims to stifle anti-government dissent and restrict civil rights after nearly a year of unrest. Importantly, under the new laws, police can draw up suspected "extremist lists": once a person is on such a list, they can be banned from vocations including journalism and teaching — and their finances can be surveilled by the state. To date, most politicians who have challenged Lukashenko's three-decade rule are now either in exile or have been thrown into jail. Though the US and EU have slapped sanctions on Belarus and called for fresh elections, Lukashenko does not seem to be deterred at all.
Argentina's beef crisis: In a bid to address soaring food prices and rising inflation, Argentina's government on Tuesday banned all beef exports for 30 days. It's a massive deal given that Argentina is one of the world's biggest exporters of beef, shipping around $3 billion worth in 2020, 70 percent of which went to Chinese markets. President Alberto Fernández wants to lower domestic beef prices that have soared in recent months, but some critics say that the "emergency measure" was politically motivated (Fernández desperately wants beef prices to drop ahead of midterm legislative elections this fall). Argentina, which was already suffering from sky-high inflation before the pandemic, has been pummeled by rising global food prices and COVID-related supply chain disruptions: retail beef prices in Buenos Aires increased 65 percent over the past year. Fernández is now betting that reducing costs for the meat-obsessed Argentine population will offset any blowback from the lost export dollars. Come October, we'll know if his approach paid off.What We're Watching: Bolsonaro's setback, Western Sahara flare-up, Moldova's new president
Bolsonaro allies suffer in local elections: Elections haven't brought great news for Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro lately. First his gringo pal and ideological trailblazer Donald Trump lost his re-election bid up North. Then, this past weekend, dozens of candidates whom Bolsonaro supported in Brazil's local elections failed to win outright or even make it to runoffs. According to one tally (Portuguese) by the daily Estado de São Paulo, only 9 of the 59 candidates whom the president supported advanced in any way. This is the first Brazilian election to gauge the national mood since the onset of the coronavirus — which has taken more lives in Brazil than anywhere except the US. Overall, incumbent politicians and traditional parties generally fared well. Does that mean the anti-establishment furor that swept Bolsonaro to power in 2018 is fading? It's hard to say just yet — but as Bolsonaro begins to position himself for re-election in 2022, these election results will surely be on his mind, and ours.
Western Sahara conflict flares: For decades, the Sahrawi nomads of the Western Sahara have demanded independence from Morocco, which took control of the region in the mid 1970s after Spanish colonial forces withdrew. A bloody and inconclusive war between Morocco and the local Polisario Front (a Sahrawi rebel liberation movement) ended with a fragile UN-backed truce in 1991. Now, after thirty years, tensions are flaring again, as Moroccan forces launched a military operation in a UN-controlled demilitarized zone in response to what Rabat says are recent provocations by Polisario guerillas. The Polisario, for their part, say they are fed up after years of false promises: when the 1991 armistice was declared, the UN created a mission (known as MINURSO) to monitor the ceasefire and facilitate a referendum in which the Sahrawi would choose between independence or unification with Morocco. But no such referendum has ever taken place. Meanwhile, thousands of displaced Sahrawi continue to live in squalor in refugee camps in neighboring Algeria. This conflict now threatens to further destabilize the tumultuous Sahel region, which is already grappling with a deadly Islamic insurgency, a civil war in Libya, and a flare up in Ethiopia that's spilling over into Sudan and Eritrea.
Moldova's new president: Pro-EU opposition candidate Maia Sandu won the presidential runoff in the small former Soviet republic of Moldova, defeating the staunchly pro-Russian incumbent, Igor Dodon, by a staggering 15-point margin. Sandu, a former prime minister and World Bank economist, has called for closer ties to the EU and more serious efforts to tackle the country's staggering level of corruption (an infamous bank fraud scheme totaled almost a fifth of the country's GDP). Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, has long been caught in a tug of war between its former imperial masters in Moscow and the (distant) promise of EU membership. Sandu's upstart victory is something of a black eye for Russian president Vladimir Putin, who had openly backed Dodon. We are watching to see how Sandu navigates her country's foreign relations while trying to make much needed improvements at home.