Ceuta, Melilla Gibraltar y el Sáhara Occidental. Estrategias españolas y europeas para las ciudades de frontera exterior en África, y los peñones de Vélez y Alhucemas

Abstract

CEUTA, MELILLA, GIBRALTAR AND WESTERN SAHARA. SPANISH AND EUROPEAN STRATEGIES FOR THE EXTERNAL BORDER CITIES IN AFRICA, AND THE ROCKS OF VÉLEZ AND ALHUCEMAS

In Spain-Morocco relations, there is an imbalance in favour of Morocco in the territorial issues of the bilateral relationship. Various measures to consolidate and strengthen Ceuta and Melilla in the European Union are analysed, with short, medium- and long-term strategies that take into account the interests of the cities and Spain in the Strait of Gibraltar Area and Region.

The objective of consolidating the EU in Spain’s Cities, Islands and Rocks on the African coast must be permanent in Spanish action, especially after the Ceuta crisis of 2021, with Morocco’s use of mass immigration as a diplomatic weapon against Spain; and the subsequent Spanish shift to Western Sahara in 2022. These events confer a certain international-legal precariousness on Ceuta and Melilla, given Spain’s lack of reaction to Morocco’s serious breaches of its international obligations.
This paper analyses short- and medium-term strategies, such as the establishment of a European outermost region, and especially proposes the creation of a specific status in the EU adapted to the needs of Ceuta and Melilla, as ‘EU External Border Cities in Africa’, given the absolutely unique nature of their circumstances in the European and Mediterranean context.
Long-term strategies that can serve to strengthen the Cities and serve Spain’s interests in the Strait region are also analysed. These include the possible analogy of future solutions for Gibraltar as an internationalised city linked to the EU. Along the same lines of the search for strategies, the possible geostrategic interest for Spain of the option of dividing up the Saharan territory, proposed by the UN Secretary General in 2002, as one of the options for resolving the Western Sahara conflict, is analysed.

Finally, it analyses the situation of legal limbo in which the islands and rocks, particularly the rocks of Vélez and Al Hoceima, find themselves in Spanish law. The need for a policy of ‘Lawfare’ is raised, intensifying Spanish and European normative references. It is also proposed to consider new functions and meanings for the Peñones as places of memory and historical interpretation of the Rif wars of the 19th and 20th centuries.