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For Spain, the idea that Morocco could engineer a situation to annex Ceuta and Melilla is far from theoretical speculation. | Adri Salido\/Getty Images<\/p>\nSpain\u2019s economy is 10 times bigger than Morocco\u2019s, and the European country was once a colonial overlord there. But, as Jacob Mundy, associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University, points out, Spain relies on its neighbor for cooperation in a number of areas beyond migration, including anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSpain and Morocco have been at war with each other on and off for centuries and yet they have these profoundly deep, commercial, security and other kinds of relationships,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d think: Spain\u2019s the bigger economy and so on, it\u2019s going to be the one in charge, and yet Morocco has found ways to have the upper hand to some degree,\u201d he added, underlining the \u201cprickliness\u201d that Madrid often encounters when dealing with Rabat.<\/p>\n
For Spain, the idea that Morocco could engineer a situation to annex Ceuta and Melilla is far from theoretical speculation. | Adri Salido\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Morocco\u2019s alleged manipulation of migratory flows into Ceuta and Melilla is one such example, as well as periodically preventing Spanish fishing fleets from accessing its waters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The perception that S\u00e1nchez has been soft on Morocco was fueled by his government\u2019s decision, in 2022, to end nearly five decades of Spanish neutrality on Western Sahara by backing Rabat\u2019s proposal that the territory should come under its control. <\/p>\n
That was seen as an effort by Madrid to secure once and for all its neighbor\u2019s cooperation on migration and prevent repeats of May 2021, when Morocco allowed around 10,000 people to cross into Ceuta in the space of a few hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s economy is 10 times bigger than Morocco\u2019s, and the European country was once a colonial overlord there.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6211,190,13353,191,994,572,2262,2883,16345,4849,194,2641,29064,4906,29065,29066,14001,26280,2355,32,10335,203,2264,205,1726,1010,4912,3205,208,13186,2124,8482,17,209,210,26,27,211,7582],"class_list":["post-76443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-africa","tag-alberto-nunez-feijoo","tag-books","tag-borders","tag-cities","tag-conflict","tag-cooperation","tag-corruption","tag-crisis","tag-disinformation","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-fishing-fleets","tag-genocide","tag-highways","tag-illicit-drugs","tag-intelligence","tag-intelligence-services","tag-islam","tag-israel","tag-media","tag-migration","tag-morocco","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-portugal","tag-religion","tag-rights","tag-santiago-abascal","tag-security","tag-services","tag-social-media","tag-space","tag-spain","tag-spanish-politics","tag-trade","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-war-in-iran","tag-western-sahara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}