During the governments of Conservative Mariano Rajoy (2011-18) Spain had disappeared from international radars. The polycrisis of the last decade – economic, political, institutional and territorial, with the Catalan secessionist thrusts – had facilitated the country’s closure on itself, engaged in the resolution of internal issues. With the return of the socialists to the Moncloa palace in 2018, the Iberian country has once again focused on foreign policy with the desire to present itself as a “pivot state” that could play an important role in the near future. There Foreign Action Strategy 2021-24 of the Spanish government sums it up quite well. And the fact that the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs is precisely the socialist Joseph Borrellforeign minister in the first Sánchez government, is no coincidence.
The three aces of Madrid
From the outset, in fact, the executive led by Pedro Sánchez proposed itself as European bridgehead in Latin America, mending relationships little cultivated in the previous decade. During the pandemic, then, Madrid played side by side with Rome and Paris to convince Brussels to approve the Next Generation EU, of which Spain is the second beneficiary after Italy. And in the last year, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis, Madrid has wasted no time, moving mainly along three axes.
On the one hand, and despite the tensions within the government coalition between the socialists and Unidas Podemos, he did not waver insupport for Kyiv, maintaining a clear Atlanticist line and reinforcing the axis with Washington. The organization of the NATO summit in Madrid last June was, if you like, the consecration of this work. On the other hand, it proposed itself as European energy hub, being able to count on non-dependence on Russian gas and on the six active regasification terminals on the Spanish coast, which would cover 30% of EU needs. Finally, it has strengthened its proactive role within the Union, not only obtaining, together with Portugal, significant advantages such as the price cap on electricity – the so-called Iberian exception – which made it possible to bring inflation back to the lowest levels among EU countries, but also strengthening relations with Paris and Berlin.
The strategic role of regasification terminals
These three axes obviously intersect each other. Relations with Germany are probably the best ever. In August Schölz invited Sánchez to attend a meeting of the federal government at Moseberg Castle. Both in Berlin and in Madrid, in fact, he was interested in the construction of the MidCat, a gas pipeline, whose works were interrupted in 2019 due to the environmental impact and low economic interest, which would connect the Iberian peninsula with the center of the continent, significantly reducing German dependence on Russian gas. In October, a Spanish-German summit was held in A Coruña in which a joint action plan was signed between the two countries: Sánchez, by the way, has given its imprimatur to the German subsidy plan of 200 billion euros. In short, the Madrid-Berlin axis is solid.
The move was not well liked in Paris. The personal relationship between Sánchez and Macron is excellent, but Franco-Spanish interests do not always coincide, especially if Germany is involved. Only during the Euro-Mediterranean summit held in December in Alicante was an agreement reached between Paris – opposed to the construction of the MidCat –, Madrid and Lisbon to unblock the situation. There the project was bornH2Med, submarine connection between Barcelona and Marseille for the transport of‘green hydrogendeclared to be of common EU interest and 50% financed with European funds.
The agreement favored an acceleration in Franco-Spanish relations which materialized in Treaty of Barcelona, an agreement of friendship and cooperation between the two countries on the model of those of the Elysium and the Quirinal with Germany and Italy. Among the many derivatives of the treaty, in addition to symbolic measures such as the organization of an annual bilateral summit, it is interesting here to underline the will of Madrid and Paris to establish a common position in Europe and to solve the problem of interconnections, giving priority to those energy. Hence the close relationship with the H2Med project, but also the electricity connections that will be made in the Bay of Biscay and in the Basque-Navarre Pyrenees. Macron, in short, wanted to balance the Spanish-German axis.
The complicated puzzle of North Africa
There is one last piece to add to complete this mosaic: he north africa. And this is surely where Spanish diplomacy has had the biggest headaches. In the spring of 2021, the hospitalization of the Polisario Front leader Brahim Gali in a hospital in Logroño had opened a diplomatic crisis with Morocco, whose climax was reached in May with the “assault” of thousands of migrants on the fence of the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. In the last year Madrid has worked to mend relations with what is in effect a strategic partner. In March 2022, the Spanish premier followed the United States and Germany declaring himself in favor of the Moroccan plan for theautonomy of Western Sahara. The following month, he flew to Rabat to meet with King Mohammed VI.
The results are clear: trade relations have improved considerably – Spain is the first trading partner for the North African country; Morocco is ninth for Spain – and the migratory pressure in the Western Mediterranean and the Canary Islands it decreased by almost 30% compared to 2021, when in the other routes it increased between 50 and 136% according to Frontex. The icing on the cake was the high-level meeting between the two governments held in Rabat on 1 and 2 February which led to the signing of about twenty cooperation agreements. It is no coincidence that, to avoid last-minute unexpected events, the Spanish socialist deputies voted in the European Parliament against a critical resolution with Morocco after the Qatargate.
All roses and flowers? Obviously not. The effort to mend relations with Rabat has caused a crisis with Algiers, the main protector of the Saharawi cause, who recalled his ambassador to Madrid last spring. The result? Spain’s first gas supplier is no longer Algeria, but the United States. And here we return to the crucial importance of the regasification terminals, which should also be read against the light of US strategy in the context of the war in Ukraine.
It will start in July Spanish rotating presidency of the EU Council. Sánchez, recently elected president of the Socialist International, will play a lot in an electoral year par excellence. In May we vote for administrative elections and in December there will be political elections. The fact remains that after years of absence from the international scene, Spain has decided to play its game. And, for now, the balance is positive.
Cover photo EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ