20 Percent Of Saharawi Airspace Management Handed Over To Morocco

The Spanish government, headed by Pedro Sanchez, has covered up rumors of negotiations with the Moroccan regime to hand over the management of airspace in Western Sahara, raising suspicions among parliamentarians and the Spanish media about the possibility of a secret deal between Rabat and Madrid that would reshuffle the cards in the region.

Despite repeated briefing requests by deputies and senators at the Spanish parliament, José Manuel Alvarez, Sánchez’s foreign affairs minister, refuses to provide updated information on the ongoing talks to transfer Western Sahara’s airspace to Morocco, according to the Spanish newspaper El Independiente.

The concern was sparked off by the written response sent to Javier Armas, a Spanish senator, who demanded that the government be transparent and clear in the face of “very credible” information about the transfer of airspace management in Western Sahara to the Moroccan regime, which is currently managed from the Canary Islands, according to El Independiente.
The source expressed fears that the Moncloa Palace (the government) is finalizing the decision to cede the provision of air navigation services (ATS) of the airspace from Western Sahara to the Alawite Kingdom, “with the absurd argument that the airspace legally entrusted to us is not being transferred, but only the provision of the ATS service.”

The Spanish Foreign Ministry avoided responding to the briefing request, instead referring the author of the parliamentary question to a previous statement by Foreign Minister Manuel Alvares: “The Government of Spain refers to the intervention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Alvares Bueno, before the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies in response to the oral question related to file 180/000444 (Do you foresee transfers of sovereignty administered by Spain in Western Sahara to Morocco?) during the monitoring session on December 18, 2024.”

Faced with this unconvincing response, according to El Independiente, Deputy Armas considers that “this is an example of the government’s lack of transparency” on the issue of talks on the transfer of the management of the Saharan airspace, which the Sanchez administration itself admitted to the newspaper more than a year ago.

In the intervention to which the deputy was referred, Albares described the information about the imminent transfer of the management of Western Sahara’s airspace as a “hoax” of the opposition Popular Party, which came in response to a request made by the deputy, John Inarritu. “There is a clear and transparent roadmap between Spain and the Moroccan regime that is being implemented,” he said.

The government of Pedro Sanchez has been accused by the Spanish opposition and media of not being transparent about the ongoing negotiations on the airspace management file in Western Sahara.
Both the Foreign Ministry and ENAR, a public body in charge of air navigation management in Spain, refused to provide information on the current status of the negotiations, which Moncloa recognized in March 2023, in a written response to then-Canary Islands Alliance Senator Fernando Clavijo, who currently heads the regional government on the islands, from which air navigation in Western Sahara is managed.

In the face of the Madrid government’s policy of ambiguity, the Spanish newspaper emphasized that between 15 and 20 percent of the airspace of the former Spanish colony (Western Sahara), which is administered from the Canary Islands, is already under the control of the Alawite regime in Rabat, a dangerous development that contradicts the decisions of the United Nations, which considers Spain as the force charged with the administration of the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Western Sahara.

Such practices could cast a shadow on Algerian-Spanish relations, which have been fragile since the spring 2022 crisis, following the tragic change in Spain’s position on the Sahrawi issue.