Gustavo de Arístegui: "Ceuta and Melilla have nothing to do with colonialism"

 The Spanish diplomat Gustavo de Arístegui spoke into the microphones of ‘De cara al mundo’ on Onda Madrid

In the latest edition of ‘De Cara al Mundo’, on Onda Madrid, we had the participation of Gustavo de Arístegui, diplomat and international analyst, who spoke about the latest events between Spain and Morocco. Gustavo de Arístegui analysed in the microphones of the programme the gesture that King Mohamed VI made to Pedro Sánchez by inviting him to an iftar in the palace. On the other hand, the Spanish diplomat addressed the question of whether a parallel can be drawn between the situation in the Sahara and Ceuta and Melilla.

 Gustavo de Aristegui

What is your impression of what has happened in recent days between Spain and Morocco?

First of all, I would like to take up something we have talked about on previous occasions, and that is that foreign policy has to be a state policy, a policy of great consensus. I am afraid that, for the last 20 years or so, everyone puts the turning point at the Iraq war, fundamental foreign policy issues have become an element of discord, political instability and acid debate, I personally lived through that change, unlike my predecessors who did not have the same experience of extremely acid debates on foreign policy which became a fundamental element of opposition and opposition to opposition, redundant though it may sound. In my view, the big issues of state must be solidly supported, with their nuances, by the big parties in government. The way in which Pedro Sánchez’s government has taken the right decision has antagonised everyone, and I understand that if things had been done differently, agreements could have been reached, with the obvious nuances, in order to reach the essential situation of majority consensus before the Prime Minister’s visit to Morocco. This long introduction is to make it clear where I am going: it is a missed opportunity that the President of the Government, on one of the main trips on his agenda, has arrived in Morocco without the support of a larger part of the parliamentary framework and not only that of his group in Parliament.

Indeed, this question should give Sánchez something to think about. Often in foreign policy, the right decisions are contaminated by who makes them, and from academic, analytical or neutral positions we cannot try to abstract the identity of who makes the decision from the decision itself. That said, the trip was very important, and there was also an extraordinarily symbolic gesture in which the Moroccan head of state invited the Prime Minister to an iftar in the palace, something that was only done with his peers, with heads of state in previous periods.

A few days later, the same gesture was repeated with the head of state of the United Arab Emirates…

Indeed, this further underlines the importance of this gesture. The first is the very content of how bilateral relations between the two countries are being resumed. In previous programmes we have stressed the importance of Morocco for Spain and vice versa. Two thirds of Morocco’s foreign trade goes to the European Union, and of these two thirds, 42% is destined for and originates in Spain; we are Morocco’s leading trading partner and the leading investor country, passing to France many years ago, something that has caused some irritation in French political and private circles. France sees that Spain has more important financial, economic, commercial and investment positions in the Moroccan kingdom.

What was the other point you wanted to make?

The second aspect I would like to touch on is the very heart of the matter. In foreign policy, there are things that can be thought and expressed in private circles, but which can never be said in public. You cannot draw a parallel between the situation in Ceuta and Melilla and the Sahara, firstly because that is what Morocco has been doing for a long time, saying that Ceuta and Melilla were like the Sahara meant that they were territories to be decolonised because that is what the United Nations had said. The Sahara was a territory to be decolonised while it was administered by Spain as a colonial power, if we say that Ceuta and Melilla are linked to the Sahara, we are giving reason to that whole argument, it is perfect nonsense. If we say that we have to maintain our positions in the Sahara to guarantee the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla, we are denying at the same time the very essence of the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla, which have nothing to do with colonialism.

They certainly have nothing to do with colonialism…

In the case of Ceuta, because of the theory of the succession of states, speaking of foreign policy and international law, in this matter a broad brushstroke is not enough, it must be said that it was a Roman colony, then a Visigoth colony, then the Caliphate of Cordoba, whose successor state was the Kingdom of Spain, not the Kingdom of Morocco. The second point, when it passed into Portuguese hands and was inherited by Philip II on the death of his mother, Isabella of Portugal, it remained in the Spanish crown during Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV, when Portugal became an independent kingdom again the people of Ceuta were asked which crown they wanted to keep and they decided to keep the crown of Spain, this is very important to say and we are talking about 1640, someone explain to me what this has to do with colonialism. Finally, in the case of Melilla, it is an initiative of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and V of Castile, the Catholic, who in 1497, after the Berber pirates harassed the peaceful commercial and even military navigation of the European powers in the Mediterranean, decided to take one more place, like so many others dominated by Spain, to guarantee security in the Mediterranean and maritime traffic. In Melilla, far from where the legal and feudal dominions of the then Sultan of Morocco reached, Spain established a strong point and this was the result of the to and fro of international borders. By the rule of three of the reasoning of having a territory in another continent, two thirds of Istanbul and all the European part of Turkey would belong to Bulgaria and Greece. What I am saying is that we have to start making serious and real legal-political and foreign policy arguments, i.e. what we cannot do is to tie our own hands with other people’s arguments. Anyone who continues to insist on linking Ceuta and Melilla with the Sahara should be doing Ceuta and Melilla a disservice.