The battle for the Maghreb

Everything has been dynamited by Russia's invasion of Ukraine for more than a hundred days because the Kremlin has decided to confront the European Union (EU) and as part of this scenario Africa also plays a relevant role for Russian appetites, not to mention Chinese ones. 

Sergey Lavrov's visit to Algeria on May 10 to mark the 60th anniversary of the restoration of relations between the African country and Russia prompted a visit by the Foreign Minister to see Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algeria's president, in person. Nothing could be more significant in the midst of the friction that Spain has been accumulating in recent months over the issue of Western Sahara. 

Russian and Chinese colonialist ambitions on the African continent for the 21st century run deep, and have come in the form of anti-COVID vaccines, medicines, financing and investment. Chinese leader Xi Jinping's New Silk Road has key infrastructure projects in several African countries to exploit natural resources and create communication networks to facilitate the movement of Chinese goods. 

Russia looks to Africa with its geopolitical and military vision. The business of arms sales, military bases, the Wagner Group's leakage in various conflicts manoeuvring in favour of the Kremlin's interests in the region. The Sochi Summit - October 2019 - with 43 African leaders attending a handshake with the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, is a relevant watershed for Moscow's imperialist appetites. 

Putin can no longer hide the fact that Russia's "return to greatness", which he intends, maintains strategic moves not only in Europe, but also in Latin America, Asia and Africa. 

In the midst of this, we Europeans are falling into all the traps like unwary children. That Europe that Adolph Hitler and Iósif Stalin once planned to divide up, until the two dictators decided to betray each other because they were suspicious of each other. 

The turn of the cycle: in the midst of this atrocious dialectic, Moscow has for years had its eye on regaining territory in Europe. For Putin, size matters; every territorial power adds up militarily and geopolitically.

With the Maghreb there are many hidden interests, both internal to the territories that make up the Maghreb (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Western Sahara) and external powers. Fundamentally China and Russia, because Europe has long since given up its colonialist interests in a continent that gives it more migratory problems than joy. 

The current diplomatic conflict in which Spain is involved with Morocco and Algeria really has at its heart the dispute over the Maghreb, understood as a region with important outlets to the northern Mediterranean; to the west of the Atlantic and with the Sahara as a dispute.

Spain already suffered the fall of its former Foreign Minister, Arancha González Laya, in July 2021, after it was leaked to the press that the Iberian country had granted a 'humanitarian' permit to Brahim Ghali, secretary general of the Polisario Front, to be admitted to a hospital in Logroño suffering from SARS-CoV-2.

Since then, Spain's political climate with Morocco and Algeria has only become more strained, with Western Sahara in the middle, while Laya should have appeared at the time to explain all the reasons for allowing the current president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) to receive emergency treatment on Spanish territory and not, for example, in Portugal or France.

This has already led to a diplomatic crisis with Morocco and a current one with Algeria. Spanish foreign policy has since changed radically in its position towards the Sahrawi people, breaking decades of support for the UN resolution in favour of a referendum to define their self-determination. 

The fall of González Laya did not satisfy the Moroccan Royal Court, which interpreted the support for Ghali as a major affront that has been exacted by using the hunger and needs of Moroccan migrants as a weapon to collapse Spain's borders. 

The jumps over the fence, the small boats and the massive arrival by sea of thousands of young people and women with children in their arms towards Ceuta and Melilla opened up a huge migratory crisis, collapsing Spanish care centres. 

The recurrent use of migration as a potential weapon of war, as an instrument of pressure and blackmail, has the countries of the so-called first world completely overwhelmed. 

The new change of Foreign Minister, with José Manuel Albares leaving the Spanish Embassy in France to take up the post of Foreign Minister on 10 July last year, is less than a year into his term in the post and has not achieved any substantial progress in unblocking the frozen conflict in Western Sahara. 

Spain will not be able to get along with the two countries: Morocco and Algeria; while both nations are taking advantage of Spain's diplomatic weakness to confront each other over what really matters to them: the control of the Maghreb. 

What is the problem with Western Sahara? It is a territorial extension of 270,000 square kilometres, most of which is sand that was formerly a Spanish colony that in 1975, after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, was annexed by Morocco.

The UN tried to broker a truce between the Moroccans and the Polisario Front. The two have an equidistant vision of Western Sahara: Morocco wants to annex it and grant it autonomy, but always under the Moroccan framework, and the Polisario wants a referendum - endorsed by the UN - to ask the population whether it wants self-determination and independence. 

Neither the UN has held the referendum, nor has the conflict ended. Spain maintained a position in favour of the UN and the referendum for self-determination, and Algeria supports it. 

In the last four months, Spain has changed its position like the hands of the clock, with the aim of restoring diplomacy with Morocco, which also withdrew its ambassador in May 2021 and reinstated her last March.

What does Spain now say in the voice of Foreign Minister Albares? That the Sahara is a Moroccan matter and that Morocco has the power to resolve the problem. 

And although it seems that it is all just inhospitable sand - of no value - inhabited by half a million inhabitants, we are talking about a territory of about a thousand kilometres on the Atlantic coast that also borders Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania.

It is also economically valuable: for its fishing grounds, reserves of phosphate, zirconite and other metals, as well as oil, gas and a lot of sand needed for construction. 

Algeria has supported the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic since 1976, which is why Spain's change of diplomatic stance has been received not only by the international community, but also by the Sahrawis and Algeria as an insult. 

Finally, Algeria announced the suspension of the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourly Relations with Spain signed two decades ago.  Algerian banks froze all transactions between companies from both countries in order to prevent payments arising from their trade and business relations. 

There are 500 companies on both sides affected by the unilateral announcement. Minister Albares was surprised almost at dawn by the Algerian decision, which was also aired in his own country's press. 

As a result, Albares cancelled his trip to the Summit of the Americas at the special invitation of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. At one point it was said that Spain would sign a document to receive Central American migrants sent by the US.

Albares did not attend the summit, but travelled to Brussels as a matter of urgency to meet with Valdis Dombrovskis, vice-president of the European Commission responsible for trade policy, in order to obtain EU backing and exert pressure on Algeria as a bloc. 

Spain's greatest fear is not that Algeria will freeze exports and imports of beef, dairy products and other goods, but that it will interrupt gas supplies at such a crucial geopolitical moment, with energy prices soaring, especially in several European countries that are highly dependent on Russian oil and gas. 

Spain is not dependent on Russia, but on Algeria: 42.7% of the gas consumed in the Iberian economy comes from Algeria; the greatest fear is that the blackmail will end up leaving consumers without gas, especially in autumn and winter, when home heating is switched on centrally and lasts at least until May. 

In the midst of the diplomatic crisis and trade relations, Brussels has come out in support of Spain, saying that if Algeria unilaterally breaks the agreement, it breaks it with the entire EU and will be subject to a series of sanctions. 

In the midst of the diplomatic hustle and bustle, the Spanish press is asking Albares whether he will resign and take responsibility. In the meantime, Socialist president Pedro Sánchez will have to explain himself before Congress. 

While Algeria affirms that it will continue to supply gas to Spain and points out that it will comply with the Friendship Agreement, in the Moncloa there is a huge diplomatic mess. And Russia is celebrating with ice-cold vodka...