Spain is reorienting its foreign policy towards Africa while lobbying the EU and NATO for support to deal with migration from the continent, aggravated by the invasion of Ukraine, have told Reuters two senior officials and two diplomatic sources.
Spain will use a NATO summit in Madrid this week to make its point and is likely to demand increased intelligence sharing by the alliance, including on migration-related issues, diplomats said.
Even before Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had relaunched a strategy shelved by previous governments of working with African partners to contain migration and address the root causes. such as instability and climate change, two officials close to him said.
This desire has now taken on a more urgent character, they added.
“We seek to establish good relations with all the neighbors around us and jointly manage phenomena that no one, not even the most powerful state on the planet, can manage alone,” Spain’s foreign minister told Reuters. Jose Manuel Albares. He declined to give details.
Spain, its southern neighbors and EU officials are increasingly alarmed that a hunger crisis exacerbated by the disruption of grain exports from Ukraine will trigger chaotic migration from the Sahel and the sub-Saharan regions of Africa, whose numbers are already on the rise this year, the sources said.
On Friday, at least 23 migrants died after clashes with Moroccan security forces as around 2,000 people attempted to cross into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. In recent weeks, Morocco has tightened containment measures following Spain’s new diplomatic approach.
Migration by sea to the Canary Islands, another risky but popular entry point into Europe, jumped 51% between January and May this year compared to last year, according to Spanish data, the busiest period of the year so much yet to come.
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Spain is used as a gateway to Europe by migrants from other continents, especially Africa and Latin America. Although largely a transit country, previous surges in arrivals have put its border resources under intense pressure.
Mr Albares said the new strategy, which has seen Sanchez visit nine African countries since last year, was designed to keep migrants away from danger.
“We cannot allow the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, to become huge watery graves where every year thousands of human beings die when all they yearn for is a better life,” Albares said.
Human rights groups and migration advocates, however, say Spain’s drive to outsource law enforcement puts vulnerable people in the hands of security forces from countries with a long history. of abuse and authoritarian policing.
Deaths in Morocco “are a tragic symbol of European policies of externalization of EU borders”, groups including the Moroccan Association for Human Rights and Spanish migrant advocacy charity Walking have said. Borders, in a joint statement Saturday.
Mr. Sanchez’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
INFORMATION SHARING
In a sign of its growing concern, Madrid hopes to obtain a commitment at the NATO summit for better management of “hybrid threats”, in particular the possibility that irregular migration is used as a means of political pressure by hostile actors. It will also pressure NATO to devote resources to securing the alliance’s southern flank.
Madrid will ask NATO to “share intelligence among allies”, including on migration issues, said a senior Spanish diplomatic source and a European diplomat. This could formalize and expand existing intelligence cooperation.
At the summit, NATO will strengthen cooperation efforts with the countries of the South and agree on a package for Mauritania to help “the fight against terrorism, border control and the strengthening of its defense and security,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told El Pais newspaper over the weekend.
NATO’s expanded presence could allow Mauritania, which works closely with Spain, to help coordinate with other countries in the Sahel region, said Felix Arteaga, senior defense analyst at the Institute. Elcano de Madrid, a think tank.
Foreign Minister Albares declined to give details on how NATO might expand its operations in Africa.
NATO sources and academics say Spain’s proposals will meet resistance amid conflicting needs from countries such as Russia’s vulnerable neighbors in the Baltic states.
Spain says Russia’s growing influence in unstable countries, including the Central African Republic and Sahel country Mali, risks fueling insecurity in southern Europe.
Citing the presence of Russian military contractors in Mali, the blockade of grain exports from Ukraine and the policy of Moscow’s ally Belarus, which last year allowed migrants to enter the EU, Madrid claims that President Vladimir Putin could use migration and hunger as part of his war effort.
“Putin wants to use the food crisis to orchestrate a recurrence of the migration crisis of the magnitude we saw in 2015-16 to destabilize the EU,” a European Union official told Reuters.
Moscow denies any responsibility for the food crisis, blaming Western sanctions that limit its own grain exports for the jump in world prices.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FUNDING FOR THE SAHEL
In recent weeks, Mr. Sanchez has increased bilateral meetings with heads of state and officials from Nigeria, Morocco and Mauritania to discuss economic cooperation, human trafficking, the strengthening of control capacities borders and the fight against terrorism.
In June, the government sent to parliament a new development bill aimed at channeling funds to the Sahel. The legislation would mark a significant expansion of existing funding for migration control in eight African countries.
Italy has also sought to secure support, with the government having previously hosted a meeting of southern European nations to push for a post-Ukrainian migration policy that spreads arrivals more evenly across the country. ‘Europe.
People are already on the move. Data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shows that departures from the Sahelian nation of Niger in the first four months of this year have increased by 45%, and have doubled in neighboring Mali.
This increase has not yet had an impact on arrivals on European coasts.
A Reuters review of data from the European border and coast guard agency Frontex showed that the number of migrants arriving in the Canary Islands from the Sahel region of Africa and below, from Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana, increased in the first five months of 2022 compared to the same period last year.
Entire families are increasingly making the trip to the Atlantic islands in flimsy dinghies from southern Senegal and Guinea, citing insecurity, climate change and, in more recent cases, high food prices, said Jose Antonio Rodrguez Verona, a Red Cross official in the Canary Islands.
Morocco remains the largest source and transit country for migrants to Spain, with record numbers of Moroccans reaching the Canary Islands in January and February this year.
These figures, however, fell by 85% in March and April compared to the previous two months, according to Frontex figures, after Spain changed its policy on disputed Western Sahara to align with Morocco’s position. Albares attributed the drop directly to the change in policy.
“I would like to thank the extraordinary cooperation we have with the Kingdom of Morocco,” Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez said on Saturday after the deaths in Melilla, which he blamed on gangs of human traffickers. .