The Siege Of Sanchez’s Position On Western Sahara Expands

The Spanish opposition believes that the government of Pedro Sanchez, despite changing its position on the Sahrawi issue, has not been able to protect Spanish interests in Morocco, nor has it succeeded in restoring normal relations with Algeria, leading it to demand that the government correct its positions, which have caused Madrid many political problems with its southern neighbors.
This political reading was the focus of a parliamentary motion by the Spanish opposition last Wednesday, which demanded that the coalition government “adopt a national policy on Western Sahara that contributes to restoring the political consensus on this conflict and implementing the will expressed by the House of Representatives,” which has more than once rejected the sudden and inappropriate change in the Sanchez government’s position on the Sahrawi issue.
The political opponents of the Sanchez government accuse it of throwing it into the arms of the Moroccan regime without achieving the interests of the Spanish people, especially with regard to the situation in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the issue of illegal immigration, which has not stopped due to the failure of the other party (the Alaouite Kingdom) to comply with the conditions agreed between Sanchez and the Moroccan King, Mohammed VI, in the spring of 2022.
Two years later, questions remain about the letter Sánchez sent to the Moroccan king. The newspaper El Independiente says: “It is not known who was the editor and who was the envoy, since it contains numerous errors, including the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself. “It is the message that the opposition believes that the Spanish Prime Minister “has shattered more than four decades of positions of successive Spanish governments, the Popular Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party, with regard to this conflict,” in reference to support for the so-called “autonomy plan” presented by the Moroccan regime to resolve the Western Sahara issue.
All these facts made the conditions ripe for a political strike against Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Socialist Workers’ Party, which suffered another defeat in the House of Representatives, the first in this legislative period, in relation to the Western Sahara conflict, due to its suspicious relations with the Moroccan regime.
Last Wednesday, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Spanish Parliament approved with explicit approval the proposal presented by the opposition Popular Party, which calls on the coalition government to “restore political consensus on this dispute and comply with the will expressed by the House of Representatives” throughout 2022 in defense of the Sahrawi people’s legitimate right to self-determination, says the same source.
The proposal received 24 votes in favor and 13 against. After the support it received from the parties “Somar”, “Bildo” and “PNV”, which are Pedro Sanchez’s partners in the ruling coalition, what can be considered a painful political blow to the policy of the government led by Sanchez for the second time in a row, which now threatens to face political crises in the future if the concerns raised by its political partners and opponents are not addressed. in the future if the concerns of its political partners and opponents are not addressed.
The representative of the opposition Popular Party, Pablo Hispan, stated after the adoption of the proposal: “It’s about restoring the consensus on one of the main issues of Spanish foreign policy,” and for him, what Sánchez did regarding Madrid’s position on the Sahrawi issue “violated the consensus. “This is a fact that has not even been explained to the Spanish people, and this Parliament has rejected it on three occasions during the previous legislative session.”