Marrakech – A new Spanish poll reveals how far-right rhetoric continues to fuel unfounded fears about Morocco among Spanish citizens. According to a CIS study released Thursday, 66.2% of Spaniards have considered the possibility of their country becoming involved in an armed conflict in the coming years.

Among those contemplating such a scenario, 42.2% identify Morocco as a potential adversary, ranking second only to Russia.

The survey shows that nearly 28 out of every 100 Spaniards – one in four – view a war with their southern neighbor as feasible. This perception reflects deeply rooted prejudices rather than any genuine security assessment from Spanish government or military officials.

Conducted through 2,000 telephone interviews between November 3-11, the CIS study reveals concerning patterns in Spanish public opinion.

Among Spaniards who have considered potential conflicts, 57% identify Russia as the most likely adversary, followed by Morocco at 42.2% and the United States at 30.2%. Notably absent from the list is Algeria, while China appears at 11.2% and Israel at 3%.

The poll indicates that fear of military scenarios is gaining traction amid global rearmament trends. Among those who express recurring fears, the possibility of wars and conflicts ranks as their primary concern, surpassing health, economic, or housing issues. Some 76.8% of this group fears military escalation in what they perceive as an uncertain and fractured world.

The survey further shows that 68% of Spain’s population believes the world is deteriorating, compared to 27.3% who maintain optimism. This pessimism slightly improves when focusing on Spain’s domestic situation, with 67.7% expressing negative views versus 26.8% remaining optimistic.

Immigration dominates Spain’s security imagination

These findings align with data from the Royal Elcano Institute’s latest barometer, conducted between May and June. That study revealed Spanish sympathy toward Morocco barely reaches 4.6 out of 10, significantly lower than ratings for Italy, Ukraine, or even Palestine.

This negative perception intersects with immigration concerns, as irregular migration remains the top European worry for Spaniards, above the Ukraine war or poverty.

Underneath these apprehensions persists a deeper cultural script – a residual, almost mythic civilizational trope suggesting that “the Moors will return,” a reversed historical echo that still structures segments of Spain’s collective imagination.

The Elcano study documents an evolution in Spanish threat perceptions. Morocco maintains its position as the primary perceived threat, but with higher percentages than in previous surveys. Meanwhile, Russia holds second place. Specifically, 55% of Spaniards cite Morocco as a threat compared to only 1% for Algeria.

The research notes significant shifts in threat assessment. Following the 2022 outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, Spanish perception of Moscow as a potential threat increased substantially from 20% to 36%.

More striking is the change regarding the United States, which jumped from 5% viewing it as a threat in 2024 to 19% in 2025, reflecting concerns about Donald Trump’s policies – many of which are perceived in Spain as disproportionately advantageous to Rabat and potentially risky for Spain’s position in the Mediterranean.

These alarmist anxieties have even led segments of the Spanish media to speculate that Trump might go so far as to recognize Ceuta and Melilla as Moroccan territory – which, as a matter of historical fact, they are.

The American president, for instance, had recently suggested expelling Spain from NATO over its refusal to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP – an unprecedented threat that deeply unsettled Iberian public opinion.

A ‘Morocco complex’ persists in Spain

The correlation between security fears, geopolitical outlooks, and attitudes toward Morocco points to deeper social and historical drivers of Spanish distrust.

This perception is shaped by longstanding sensitivities over Ceuta and Melilla, lingering memories of past migration flashpoints, and a persistent emotional attachment within parts of Spanish society to the so-called “Sahrawi cause.” Together, these factors feed a narrative that is less about Morocco’s actual behavior and more about Spain’s unresolved historical anxieties.

These deeper layers help explain why parts of Spanish public opinion and media have long harbored a kind of “Morocco complex” – a mix of superiority, anxiety, and obsession. Since the late Middle Ages, Morocco-Spain relations have been structured less as a normal bilateral tie and more as a long “contact zone” marked by overlap, rivalry, and mutual projection.

The fall of al-Andalus, the expulsions of Moriscos and Jews, the corsair wars, and later the protectorate in northern Morocco created a dense archive of memories in which Spain cast Morocco as both a lost mirror and a permanent frontier.

For many Spaniards, Morocco is not just a neighboring state; it is the symbolic “Other” through which Spain negotiates its own unresolved questions about empire, religion, and Europeanness. This is why Morocco can appear simultaneously familiar and threatening: it recalls an Islamic, Mediterranean, multi-ethnic past that official narratives tried for centuries to suppress or domesticate.

In this imaginary, Morocco is often reduced to a security problem (migration, Ceuta/Melilla, terrorism) or a territorial rival (Western Sahara), and rarely acknowledged as a modern state pursuing its own strategic project.

The 2021 crisis over Brahim Ghali’s reception in Spain and the subsequent diplomatic rupture showed how quickly these old reflexes can reappear: Morocco was again framed as the aggressive neighbor and Spain as a passive victim, even though the episode was rooted in deliberate political choices in Madrid.

Madrid recalibrates toward pragmatic cooperation

Yet this crisis also exposed the limits of treating Morocco as a minor peripheral file; Spain discovered that energy security, migration management, trade, and Atlantic-African access all run through a stable, functional relationship with Rabat. The 2022 Spanish recognition of Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara marked not just a diplomatic adjustment but a return to strategic rationality.

It signaled that, beneath the noise of media narratives and ideological nostalgia, state institutions in Madrid had accepted a structural reality: Morocco is no longer a pawn on the southern shore, but a regional power with leverage in Africa, the Atlantic, and Euro-Mediterranean policy.

Since then, cooperation on migration, energy interconnections, investments, and joint projects such as Dakhla and the Atlantic corridors – as well as preparations for the 2030 World Cup and renewed discussion of the Strait of Gibraltar tunnel – has illustrated a more interest-driven, less emotional phase.

The “enemy” image has not disappeared from all sectors of Spanish society – historical imaginaries are slow to die – but the center of gravity has shifted: from a relationship shaped by memories of conquest and loss to one increasingly organized around interdependence, shared infrastructure, and the recognition that Spain’s future projection toward Africa is inseparable from Morocco’s own rise.

Despite these diplomatic advances, the Elcano barometer reveals 57% of Spaniards believe Europe should invest more in defense. Additionally, 52% would support sending troops to ensure security in Ukraine, representing high figures for a country historically reluctant toward military action.

Read also: Why the Far Right Loves Morocco in Paris and Loathes It in Madrid