<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - Morocco]]> 10 <![CDATA[When James I helped the Moroccans to invade Ceuta]]>

Yes, you read that right: James I, the champion of Christendom, who drove Islam out of Mallorca and the Pityusic Islands, provided valuable aid to the Moroccans when they wanted to invade Ceuta. It is true that, at the time, Ceuta was part of another Islamic domain. This is one of many episodes in a long history of complicated relations between neighbors. So long, in fact, that it has reached the present day.

]]> <![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["If Vox were in power, it would also try to attract migrant workers."]]>

The president of the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad, Driss El Yazami (Fez, 1952), knows well the price of being a human rights activist after experiencing imprisonment and exile in France during the reign of Hassan II. Currently, the institutional weight of his position has not distanced him from the realities of his country, as demonstrated by his advocacy for changes that would make it more democratic. Yazami visited Mallorca to present a study on school enrollment and dropout rates among Moroccan students.

]]> <![CDATA[Only three out of every 100 Moroccan students who complete compulsory secondary education graduate from university.]]>

Only 3% of Moroccan students who complete compulsory secondary education (ESO) in the Balearic Islands go on to university studies. This is one of the findings of the study. School enrollment and school dropout rates of the Moroccan population residing in the Balearic Islands The report, presented this Tuesday, was authored by anthropologist Alexandre Miquel, psychologist and sociologist José Luis Reina, and Mustafa Boulharrak, president of the Balearic Association of Moroccans. The Council for the Moroccan Community Abroad, chaired by Driss El Yazami, also collaborated on the study. Despite a 95% increase in Moroccan primary school students (from 1,730 to 3,373) between 2010 and 2023, the increase in secondary school students was only 21% (from 1,357 to 1,640), primarily due to economic reasons, especially during the pandemic and subsequent years. The increase in students in intermediate-level vocational training has been 169% (from 94 enrolled in 2010 to 253 in 2023), while the increase rate in higher-level vocational training has been 653%, a percentage that is explained by the lower presence of Moroccan students at this educational stage: in 2010 there were 128.

]]> <![CDATA["How can you not go out on the street if you can die at the door of a hospital?"]]>

Driss smiles and pauses for a moment in the Palma hair salon where he works while he considers whether to comment on the protests of thousands of young Moroccans in his country. They are demanding improvements in healthcare, education, job creation, and, ultimately, social justice. Decent living conditions. "Of course I understand them. How could I not?" he asks. They organized themselves through social media and digital platforms under the name GenZ212 (the generation to which they belong and the international telephone code for Morocco) to take to the streets of cities like Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir, and Tangier, among others. Driss, 33, understands them because he was one of those disillusioned, frustrated, and angry young people who demanded changes to the system.

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