A tale of two territories

Here is a tale of two territories; one administered by Britain and the other by Spain. In the case of the one administered by Britain, Spain has claimed it since it was obliged to hand it over in 1713 as a result of the Treaty of Utrecht. In the case of the territory administered by Spain, few outside Morocco and the Maghreb may have heard of it. The first is Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory; the second is Ceuta & Melilla, the two towns in northern Morocco still ruled by Spain and claimed by Morocco. 

The people of Gibraltar have decided on two occasions, in overwhelming numbers, that they wish to remain associated with Britain and not with Spain. As an official election observer on the second occasion, I can testify to the strength of feeling. But Britain remains isolated over Gibraltar, with the EU and most European states quietly supporting Spain. Spain’s criticism of Britain does not however extend to any self-doubt as to its right to Ceuta & Melilla, which Morocco says are ‘a remnant of colonialism’. Spain for its part says that these are Spanish towns and have been since the late 1400s and 1600s. And it is the case that France and Spain gave up their ‘protectorates’ in 1956 when Morocco became independent. And yet Ceuta and Melilla were somehow not included. The two Spanish towns also give the impression of being fairly low down on any list of Spanish priorities; They both lie at the bottom of Spain’s regions socioeconomically. They have the lowest levels of GDP per capita, as well as the highest levels of unemployment. 

Morocco is not as vocal in its claim as Spain is, and has been, to its claim. Some may therefore say; why does this anomaly matter in particular? The answer is provided in part by the increasingly fortified borders that Spain has thrown up around its claimed territories in Morocco. These are aimed not at keeping people in – but keeping people out. And the people Spain want to keep out are migrants, migrants who if they do come through the borders illegally, then use Ceuta and Mellila as the staging post for the short hop across the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain. Thousands would attempt daily to make the passage from Morocco before the Pandemic, and while numbers are reduced now, the issue is one that is regularly stoked by far-Right political anti-immigration parties in Spain. After the ending of the Pandemic, as part of an EU-wide bid to stem migration from African countries, the Spanish government ended the agreements that once allowed Moroccans to cross daily to work in the enclave. This in turn had led to a massive down-turn in the local Moroccan economy around Ceuta and Melilla, especially in the border town of Fnideq as the jobs and income dried up. A Moroccan Mother whose son did make it across the border and is now desperately seeking work in Barcelona said; “Every kid in Fnideq dreams about crossing,” she says, as she watches people passing her down the street. The question is; when will Spain recognise that the measures that it has taken to stem migration have led directly to the conditions that create it? And in the longer term, how may it be possible for Spain to justify holding on to territories in Morocco while denying many Moroccans the right even to enter them? 

*Mark Seddon is a former Speechwriter to UN Secretary-General Ban ki moon & former Adviser to the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly