Morocco Sees Rapprochement Between Spain and Algeria as a Threat

The head of Spain’s intelligence service and former Spanish ambassador to Morocco, Jorge Dezcallar de Mazarredo, has attributed the deterioration in relations between Spain and Morocco to the recent improvement in ties between Algeria and Madrid—a development, he said, that officials in Rabat have struggled to accept.

In comments to several Spanish media outlets, Dezcallar said the Moroccan regime had interpreted recent steps taken by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez toward Algeria as a shift in Madrid’s approach to its southern neighbours in North Africa. According to Dezcallar, this prompted Rabat to resort to what he described as reckless actions, including the orchestrated entry into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta of at least 80,000 irregular Moroccan migrants, along with a smaller number of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

In an interview on Monday, September 28, with Radio 4 and 2Cat, Dezcallar said one of the developments that had angered the Moroccan regime was the “resumption or restoration of relations between Spain and Algeria.” The two countries had experienced an unprecedented diplomatic rupture between March 2022 and April 2024, when Algerian Ambassador Abdelfattah Daghmoum returned to Madrid after a two-year absence. Algeria had recalled its ambassador on March 19, 2022, following Spain’s shift in its position on the Western Sahara issue.

The former Spanish security official also linked the continuing tensions between Morocco and Spain to the Spanish parliament’s vote in favour of granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis, following two years of hesitation by Pedro Sánchez’s government. Dezcallar said the move demonstrated that “Spain has shown a greater degree of independence in its position on the Western Sahara issue.”

In the former diplomat’s assessment, “these elements taken together may have led Rabat to believe that there had been a change in Spanish policy toward the Moroccan regime.”

According to Dezcallar, the Moroccan authorities had come to believe that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and several senior members of his government—including the defence, interior and foreign ministers—had effectively become dependent on Rabat after Moroccan intelligence services allegedly hacked their mobile phones using spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO Group and stole documents from them, in what became known as the Pegasus affair.

Against this backdrop, Dezcallar interpreted the events in Ceuta—namely, the alleged organisation by the Moroccan regime of the mass arrival of tens of thousands of irregular migrants—as “a message from Rabat to Madrid reminding it that the Moroccan regime holds the handle of the frying pan,” meaning that it possesses the leverage in the relationship between the two countries.

The mass influx occurred only about a week after the Spanish prime minister’s visit to Algeria on July 20 (28-29 July). The timing strengthened a narrative that had previously been advanced by numerous media outlets across Europe and contributed to the European Parliament’s adoption of a resolution criticising the Moroccan regime for using irregular migration as a means of exerting pressure on Spain to achieve political objectives.

Dezcallar also warned the Spanish authorities against making concessions to Morocco over the Western Sahara issue.

“If the Spanish government believes that making concessions on Western Sahara will bring calm to the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, that means it does not know the Moroccan regime,” he said.

Relations between Spain and Morocco are currently going through one of their most difficult periods, while ties between Algeria and Madrid have begun to stabilise following an unprecedented crisis triggered by Spain’s shift in position on Western Sahara.

Algeria recalled its ambassador from Madrid on March 19, 2022, and suspended the implementation of the 2002 Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighbourliness and Cooperation. Relations subsequently returned to normal following the ambassador’s return and the lifting of the freeze on the friendship treaty.