🔗 Share this article

Spain is charting a markedly separate course from many developed states when it comes to migration policies and cooperation with the African mainland.

Although nations including the United States, UK, France and Federal Republic of Germany are reducing their development aid budgets, the Spanish government stays focused to enhancing its engagement, even from a lower starting point.

Current Programs

Currently, the Spanish capital has been welcoming an AU-supported "world conference on persons of African origin". AfroMadrid2025 will examine reparative equity and the creation of a new development fund.

This demonstrates the newest evidence of how the Spanish administration is working to enhance and broaden its involvement with the region that sits merely a short distance to the south, across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Policy Structure

In July External Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares launched a fresh consultative body of renowned scholarly, international relations and cultural figures, more than half of them African, to monitor the execution of the comprehensive Madrid-Africa plan that his leadership unveiled at the close of the prior year.

Fresh consular offices south of the Sahara, and partnerships in commerce and learning are scheduled.

Migration Management

The difference between Madrid's strategy and that of others in the West is not just in spending but in tone and outlook – and nowhere more so than in handling migration.

Like different EU nations, Administration Head Madrid's chief executive is seeking methods to contain the influx of irregular arrivals.

"In our view, the migratory phenomenon is not only a issue of humanitarian values, mutual support and dignity, but also one of rationality," the prime minister stated.

More than 45,000 individuals undertook the dangerous ocean journey from the Atlantic African shore to the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands the previous year. Calculations of those who perished while trying the crossing vary from 1,400 to a overwhelming 10,460.

Effective Measures

Madrid's government must house fresh migrants, review their cases and manage their absorption into larger population, whether temporary or more permanent.

Nonetheless, in rhetoric markedly different from the confrontational statements that emanates from many European capitals, the Sanchez government frankly admits the hard economic realities on the ground in the West African region that force persons to risk their lives in the effort to reach Europe.

Additionally, it strives to move beyond simply denying access to incoming migrants. Rather, it is creating innovative options, with a commitment to encourage population flows that are safe, orderly and regular and "reciprocally advantageous".

Financial Collaboration

On his trip to the Mauritanian Republic recently, Madrid's representative highlighted the contribution that foreign workers contribute to the Spanish economy.

Spain's leadership funds skill development initiatives for youth without work in states like the Senegalese Republic, particularly for irregular migrants who have been repatriated, to help them develop workable employment options in their native country.

Furthermore, it increased a "cyclical relocation" scheme that gives individuals from West Africa temporary permits to enter Spanish territory for limited periods of temporary employment, mostly in cultivation, and then go back.

Geopolitical Relevance

The core principle supporting Madrid's outreach is that Spain, as the EU member state closest to the region, has an crucial domestic priority in the continent's advancement toward equitable and enduring progress, and tranquility and protection.

This fundamental reasoning might seem evident.

However the past had directed Spain down a distinctly separate route.

Besides a limited Mediterranean outposts and a small tropical outpost – today's independent Equatorial Guinea – its territorial acquisition in the 1500s and 1600s had mainly been directed across the Atlantic.

Future Outlook

The cultural dimension includes not only dissemination of the national tongue, with an increased footprint of the Cervantes Institute, but also programmes to support the mobility of academic teachers and researchers.

Protection partnership, action on climate change, women's empowerment and an increased international engagement are unsurprising components in the current climate.

Nonetheless, the plan also lays very public stress it places on backing democratic principles, the African Union and, in specific, the West African regional organization the Economic Community of West African States.

This will be welcome public encouragement for the organization, which is presently facing significant challenges after observing its five-decade milestone spoiled by the departure of the Sahel nations – Burkina Faso, the Malian Republic and the Nigerien Republic – whose governing armed forces have refused to comply with its protocol on democracy and proper administration.

Concurrently, in a message aimed similarly at Spain's internal population as its continental allies, the foreign ministry declared "assisting the African community abroad and the struggle versus discrimination and immigrant hostility are also crucial objectives".

Eloquent statements of course are only a initial phase. But in today's sour international climate such discourse really does distinguish itself.