<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Spain]]> 10 <![CDATA[The geopolitics of silence]]> There are neighbors with whom we try never to argue. Not because they are always right, nor because they are stronger, but because we know that a fight can cost us too much. Something like this happens between Spain and Morocco. Only here we are not talking about a partition wall or a piece of garden, but about borders, migration, trade, security, Ceuta, Melilla and Western Sahara.Over the last few years, Pedro Sánchez's government has opted to almost always avoid open confrontation with Rabat. Sometimes this attitude seems like a geopolitics of silence: lowering the tone, absorbing tensions and preserving, above all else, a functional relationship with Mohammed VI. The question is whether this prudence strengthens the Spanish state or if, little by little, it makes it more vulnerable.It is not a question of military strength. Spain continues to be far superior to Morocco in global terms. It is part of the European Union and NATO, it has more complete armed forces, a much larger economy, and a naval and aerial capacity that Rabat cannot match. Spanish military spending reached 40.2 billion dollars in 2025, according to SIPRI – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This figure represents a 50% increase compared to 2024 and places Spain among the fifteen countries that spend the most on the military in the world.Therefore, a direct military confrontation against Spain would be extraordinarily risky for Morocco. But relations between states are not decided solely by planes, frigates, or divisions. Deterrence is more subtle: it consists of making the other believe that certain actions will have too high a price. And it is precisely here that the problem arises.Morocco has learned to move in a terrain that is neither that of complete peace nor that of open conflict. A gray zone that includes migration control, customs, police cooperation, fishing, the Sahara, and statements regarding Ceuta and Melilla. There is no need to threaten Spain; sometimes it is enough to stop doing something that is usually done. Obviously, it has its back well covered by the USA.The Ceuta crisis of May 2021 demonstrated this with a clarity that is hard to forget. In the midst of diplomatic tension over the hospitalization in Spain of Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, thousands of people crossed the border while Moroccan control was extraordinarily reduced. In a few hours, a diplomatic crisis turned into a border, humanitarian, and political crisis.A year later, the great Spanish change regarding Western Sahara arrived. In March 2022, Sánchez described the Moroccan autonomy proposal as the most serious, realistic, and credible basis for resolving the conflict. That move allowed for the reconstruction of the relationship with Rabat, but it caused a serious crisis with Algeria and meant abandoning the balance that Spain had maintained for decades between the two great neighbors of the Maghreb.By the way, we must remember Pedro Sánchez's visit last July to Algeria, which is not talked about much. But it is certainly true that it caused a stomach ache in Rabat and for Mohammed VI.President Sánchez, with a juggling act he likes so much, tried to rebuild the balance with Algiers without undoing what he had agreed with Rabat. Spain did not withdraw its support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara. He was attempting something difficult: to maintain a privileged relationship with Morocco and, simultaneously, to recover Algeria.And there are powerful arguments for it to be this way. Spain is Morocco's main trading partner and bilateral exchanges exceed 22.5 billion euros annually. Hundreds of Spanish companies operate in the country. To this are added counter-terrorism cooperation, the fight against drug trafficking, migration control, and the joint organization of the 2030 Football World Cup.Therefore, it would be too easy to define Sánchez's policy as a simple submission. For any Spanish government, having a stable and cooperative Morocco is a matter of national security. The problem begins when cooperation and dependence are confused.Here a paradox appears. Spain has much more global power than Morocco, but Rabat has a great capacity to cause immediate problems. It can relax border controls, hinder police cooperation, or raise the tone regarding Ceuta and Melilla and generate political consequences in a matter of hours.Madrid, on the other hand, needs time. It has to mobilize the European Union, activate diplomacy, seek support, or adopt economic measures. This difference gives Morocco a tactical advantage, even if Spain has a strategic superiority.The Ceuta migration crisis of July 2026 has brought this reality back to the table. Pedro Sánchez has stated that there is no conclusive evidence that the Moroccan government deliberately organized that massive entry. At the same time, it has been noted that, during some decisive hours, border control was much lower than usual. Everything suggests that we don't know half the story. We analyze based on what they tell us and what they don't tell us, but which we glimpse or intuit. The visit to Algiers on July 20th has cost the State and the national government dearly, hasn't it?Ceuta and Melilla are the other great element of this equation. Morocco maintains its historical claim. Spain considers their sovereignty indisputable. A military operation against either of the two cities would be highly unlikely because it would trigger an international crisis of enormous dimensions. But Rabat does not need a war to keep the issue alive; it can wait. Spanish governments think in terms of legislatures. The Moroccan monarchy can think in terms of decades.Therefore, the true Spanish vulnerability today is not an invasion of Ceuta or Melilla. It is everything that can happen without reaching a military aggression: migratory pressure, diplomatic crises, commercial disputes, border tensions, and territorial claims. It is the grey zone. And it is here where an important part of the relationship between Madrid and Rabat is decided.Spain needs Morocco. Morocco also needs Spain and Europe. The relationship is one of interdependence, but it is not completely symmetrical. Intelligent policy probably does not consist of seeking a confrontation with Rabat. It would be irresponsible. But it also cannot consist of conveying that any pressure will be absorbed in silence.The media, the networks, the fights and the threats in Congress are often noise and circumstantial matters. Nor has the parliamentary opposition known how to turn this issue into a State debate. Too often, electoral interests and the struggle for power have taken precedence over serious reflection on Spain's foreign policy.In conclusion, the underlying question is whether Morocco still believes that pressuring Spain has a high price or if it thinks it comes cheap to them.Do not forget the phrase by Manuel Vicent in El País, on July 9, 2023, referring to Pedro Sánchez: “… Volvió a la sede caracoleando sobre una jaca torda para tomar el mando".

]]> <![CDATA[The flag]]> It is not the only one there is, but it usually always is. How is it that the Spanish flag, also called 'estanquera' or rojigualda, in Spanish, sooner or later ends up appearing when there is some statement or demonstration 'against' something, and so rarely in favor?I do not know the situation in Ceuta well enough to formulate an in-depth opinion on it, and that is by no means what I intend to do. All in all, I have the impression that we are facing a case where everyone has done practically everything late and poorly: the Spanish government has acted with a lack of speed only attributable to the holiday period, something unjustifiable from an institutional point of view, and the opposition parties have swooped down like hyenas on the inhabitants of the autonomous city and also on the people who have tried to enter from Morocco, only to achieve a miserable electoral gain. The Federation of Municipalities and Provinces of the State has also made an appearance, which did not take long to call for a markedly partisan mobilization with a slogan that is undoubtedly perverse and adulterated: everyone knows that the demonstrations called in front of the town halls were not so much aimed at supporting Ceuta as at protesting for the umpteenth time against the supposed 'illegitimate government' of Pedro Sánchez. Or at most, to vindicate the traces of a not-so-distant colonial past in a city that is also supposedly Spanish… In North Africa. And within this breeding ground, of course, the Spanish flag could not be missing.It is the one they bring out when they want to repress the yearnings for freedom of any of the peoples or nations that currently form part of the State (at least partially, as is the case with Euskal Herria and the Catalan Countries, which also extend into other states such as France, Andorra, and Italy). It is the one that the LGBTIQ+ community often finds right in front of their noses when the reactionary right protests against laws that protect their physical and emotional integrity. It is the flag that usually comes out during competitions and when other countries are crushed, especially in sports mostly practiced by men, and also when there are conflicts with other states, such as the United Kingdom, with Perejil, and Morocco, in this latest migratory but also territorial crisis. It is a flag that says, with three colored stripes, something similar to the “go get them” that we have heard shouted at the top of their lungs by members of the State security forces who are supposedly meant to protect citizens, and not beat them up. It is the flag of “Spain is one, and not fifty-one” (which is not usually said, naturally, in Catalan), and the one that sometimes loses the current coat of arms of the Bourbon restoration and recovers the eagle that presided over it for forty ignominious years. It is the flag of no, the flag of “tough luck,” the flag of those who strike and who unfortunately only tend to take to the streets when anger and desires for destruction push them to do so. To go against. Rarely in favor.It is not my flag.

]]> <![CDATA[Morocco, a century and a half of turmoil in Spain's lower belly]]>

[This article was first published in July 2022. We are republishing it in light of the humanitarian crisis in Ceuta]The two lions guarding the main entrance of the Congress of Deputies were made with the melted cannons of the Moroccans defeated in the battle of Wad Ras. This confrontation, along with the battles of Tetuan and Los Castillejos, brought victory to Spain in the first declared war against the Rif tribes from 1859 to 1860. The Sultanate of Morocco, the Riffian tribes, and later, the Alawite kingdom have been a constant source of conflict for the Spanish State for more than a century and a half. All in all, the armed contingents from this area of the Maghreb have constituted, by far, the foreign forces that have fought the longest against the Spanish army since the Peninsular War.

]]> <![CDATA[Triumphant]]> These days of patriotic celebration in honor of the Spanish footballers who have won the World Cup, we see how there is no form of nationalism that is not made against a good part of the 'nations' involved. Spain can beat Argentina or whoever, but what should be the symbol of sporting superiority of one human group over another becomes the emblem of the supremacism of a group or an idea of the Spanish nation above the other peoples of Spain. They are victories that are celebrated mostly internally, and not at all externally. They serve for the inside; those on the outside don't even look at them or pass by them completely, either enraged or indifferent. Those who say that football should be separated from politics should admit, at least, that it is impossible to separate sporting results from it, because they are immediately used politically as instruments of symbolic imposition, as emblems of an identity that erases or sidelines others. And needless to say, they are instrumentalized by the power of the moment, whether it be the monarchy or the progressivism of the Madrid government, which will make good use of it to interpret everything in view of its electoralist squabble. Spain could be a plural, multilingual, diverse, and inclusive project, needless to say it is theoretically and intellectually possible, but in practice it is a project of dissolution, assimilation, and erasure, or which even lives with discomfort, not the Catalan identity of some players, but their different skin color or their faith in Islam. There has been no World Cup celebration party that has not been erected into a party of mockery, where chants against the minorities of the Spanish state itself are common, without any mockery for the fallen rivals on the way to the final. States are made against nations, not against other states, which are also political machines of mass destruction of languages and differences, which, needless to say, are gladly renounced, all to be able to participate in the triumph without worries or bad conscience. We are seeing how it is especially children who are assimilated in this kind of collective euphoria explosions, because it is above all a form of infantilism, this nationalism based on ignorance or contempt or even self-hatred that leads you to forget your identity or language and to want to integrate into the 'victorious' mass. 

]]> <![CDATA[The Square of the Turtles explodes for the victory of Spain]]> <![CDATA[No to war: either we defend life or we become accomplices]]> There are moments when silence is not prudence but complicity. Moments when looking the other way is not neutrality but surrender. And this is one of those moments.

]]> <![CDATA[The Balearic pact 2027 between the PP and Vox will leave a legacy]]>

Starting this week, we'll begin to see where the relationship between the PP and Vox might be headed, and therefore, we'll have a rough idea of ​​how it will impact Balearic politics right after next year's elections.

]]> <![CDATA[US Navy helicopters land at Son Sant Joan air base]]>

Two US Navy helicopters made a stopover this Friday at the Son Sant Joan air base in Palma, after arriving from Marseille. They are two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters – serial numbers 168158 and 168167 – belonging to HSM-79 squadron, a unit usually deployed at the Rota naval base in Cádiz. The aircraft, which specialize in naval missions such as anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance, remained in Mallorca for several hours before resuming their flight to the Spanish mainland, with their final destination being Almería. The stop was reportedly due to technical issues during the flight, after a descent was detected while they were flying towards Palma from southern France.

]]> <![CDATA[The funding we deserve: we will not accept compromises or blackmail.]]> It is undeniable that the agreement between Esquerra and the PSOE has forced the Spanish government to make a move, which represents an opportunity: the current system, which has been outdated since 2014, is clearly against us and we must do everything possible to change it.

]]> <![CDATA[American]]> "I believe in America!" said the gravedigger Bonasera in Vito Corleone at the beginning ofThe Godfather (both in the novel and the film). However, the scene seemed to suggest that America, the United States, had disappointed this man; its justice system had failed him when it hadn't been able to punish his daughter's attackers. That's why he was now asking the head of the Mafia family to deliver 'justice,' to punish the violent young men because the legal system hadn't been able to (one of the young men was from a 'good family').

]]> <![CDATA[In Praise of the Baton]]> Movistar premiered a series about the repressive state police. It's called Riot police And it's quite good; Rodrigo Sorogoyen is a very good director and screenwriter; with this series, he did an excellent job. He portrayed a whole group of individuals who work for the Spanish state security forces and who, when necessary, must put down their batons and attend to whomever the command tells them to. These men weren't extraordinary: they were fallible, weak, sometimes exhibiting all the tendencies of that 'toxic masculinity' that the director had already portrayed in other works of fiction. But thanks to the cinematic vision, you connected with them, you ended up liking them, and you followed the hypothetical story of their corruptibility; ultimately, it validated Hannah Arendt's idea of ​​the 'banality of evil,' which perhaps wasn't applicable to the Nazis, but certainly to 'democratic' security forces that simply enforce the law without asking too many questions, however much this might mean infuriating the public.

]]> <![CDATA[Four of the five municipalities in Spain where it is most expensive to buy a house are in the Balearic Islands.]]>

The Balearic Islands continue to lead the ranking of Spanish municipalities with the highest housing prices. Santa Eulalia, in Ibiza, San Antonio de Portmany, and San José de Sa Atalaya top the list along with San Sebastián, exceeding €7,000 per square meter. In the case of Santa Eulalia, prices reach almost €8,500/m², according to Fotocasa data. Beyond these five locations, other municipalities in the archipelago complete the top 10 most expensive towns in Spain, with prices very close to this threshold and varying trends. In Andratx, housing prices stand at €6,982/m² after registering a year-on-year increase of 22%. Also nearby is Campos, with €6,791/m² and the largest annual increase in the ranking, at 33%, followed by Calvià with €6,747/m². These figures highlight the pressure on the real estate market in the Canary Islands, which remains one of the most expensive areas in Spain.

]]> <![CDATA[Housing prices have risen by more than 40% in Spain over the last decade, and almost double in the Balearic Islands.]]>

Housing prices in Spain have increased by more than 40% in the last ten years, exceeding €2,000 per square meter. The largest increase has been recorded in the Balearic Islands, where the price has almost doubled, according to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda. In the second quarter of 2015, the average price was €1,476/m². In the same period of 2015, it reached €2,093, an increase of €616. Approaching all-time highs

Over the last decade, prices have steadily increased. Between 2016 and 2018, the price per square meter exceeded €1,500; between 2019 and 2021, it remained above €1,600; and since 2022, it has surpassed €1,700. By 2024, it was approaching €1,900, and this year, for the first time since 2008—at the height of the real estate bubble—it has exceeded the €2,000 mark, reaching €2,093/m². Current prices are virtually identical to the historical highs of this statistical series, which began in 1995, recorded between January and March 2008 at €2,101/m².

]]> <![CDATA[The first registered car in the entire State]]>

It wasn't in Madrid, where everything always seems to happen—even today, if we go by the news on the major networks. Nor in Barcelona or Bilbao, which were then apparently much more connected to technical advances and the European sphere. The first automobile registered throughout Spain was the PM-1, in Mallorca. That was in October 1900, 125 years ago.

]]> <![CDATA[American]]> We've always been fascinated by events in the United States. Whoever is the US president and how this might affect global politics, the economy, and culture has always been a crucial issue, especially in post-war Europe, although American dominance became more entrenched with the collapse of the USSR and the so-called victory of the Cold War, when the system of free-market capitalism, hand in hand, ruled. With globalization, what became globalized above all was the United States' influence on the rest of the globe, so knowing the latest political mania of the president living in the White House was as obligatory as paying local taxes.

]]> <![CDATA[Everything burns]]> These days, while the smoke from the massive wildfires ravaging different parts of Spain worries us, we've also seen the fires affecting the Albufera region once again. This, after a few weeks in which a permanent heat wave seemed to suffocate us and in which the island teems with people and unrest. The fires become a metaphor for the present we are living in. Everything is burning; it's not in vain that we've been playing with gasoline for so long, ignoring the increasingly explicit, violent, evident, and immediate consequences of the disaster we have caused, with irreversible ecological imbalances and growing social inequalities at all levels, both locally and globally.

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