Both his partners from Unidas Podemos and the opposition agreed yesterday in criticizing the President of the Government for the shift in Spanish policy towards Western Sahara and defended, with different nuances, the theses of the Polisario Front, which denounced that Pedro Sánchez has even gone “beyond” what was announced in March, when autonomy was discussed as the “most serious, realistic and credible” option, by implicitly assuming that the former Spanish colony is part of Morocco’s “sphere of sovereignty” and committing to “avoid everything that offends” the Alaouite kingdom.
For the Polisario Front delegate in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, Sánchez is also “disconnecting” from international law by “ignoring” the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union that establish that Morocco and Western Sahara are “separate territories ”.
Along the same lines, the leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, assured that the XII high-level meeting between Morocco and Spain, held in Rabat, has meant the “consolidation” of the “unilateral” change of position of the PSOE with respect to the Sahara. And she attributed to it that the ministers of the confederal space of the Government were absent from the appointment. “The conditions are not met,” said the head of Social Rights to disassociate herself.
On behalf of the PP, the general coordinator, Elías Bendodo, said that Sánchez has given the “measure of his international featherweight” by not having been received by King Mohamed VI, which has led to an “image of weakness” of Spain, while the deputy secretary for territorial organization, Miguel Tellado, after lamenting the “umpteenth Moroccan humiliation”, also alluded to the “bump” over the Sahara, which Sánchez, in his opinion, continues without explaining.
A similar argument was used by the national spokesperson for Ciudadanos, Patricia Guasp, who accused the Prime Minister of “not respecting popular sovereignty” by promoting a reversal of Spain’s traditional relationship with what was its colony until 1975 “solely by its will”. , without the Congress or the Spanish people voting for it.
“We will go to the end to find out the truth about what kind of relationship President Sánchez has with Morocco,” warned Guasp, who wondered why the PSOE, referring to a recent vote in the European Parliament, “continues to protect a country that does not respect the freedom of the press or human rights”.
