Albares clarifies the issue of oil exploration by an Israeli company in Western Sahara authorised by Morocco

José Manuel Albares, Spain's Minister of Foreign Affairs, appeared before the Senate to address various issues.

The Spanish diplomat mainly wanted to highlight the high level of collaboration that exists between Spain and Morocco. According to José Manuel Albares, the meeting in April 2022 between King Mohammed VI and the Spanish President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, opened a new chapter that has led to the ‘best climate of cooperation and collaboration ever achieved’ in the history of bilateral relations between the two nations.

A meeting in Rabat three years ago at the invitation of the Alaouite monarch following the Spanish government's decision to support Morocco's Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara as the most ‘serious, credible and realistic’ option for resolving the Saharawi dispute.

This political move led to closer diplomatic ties and the meeting between King Mohammed VI and Pedro Sánchez served to establish a roadmap that has marked the link between the two partner countries in recent years. A period of close cooperation in many areas that has been very beneficial for both kingdoms. 

Morocco considers Western Sahara to be part of its southern provinces and wants to integrate this area into its territory, granting it a large degree of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty, all in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations and with the aim of developing the area to its fullest social and economic potential. The Moroccan proposal has already received the backing of more than 100 countries, including the United States, France, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Israel and Spain; in this case, the North African country has received great international support. 

In this context, José Manuel Albares also referred to a specific episode that has to do with the hydrocarbon explorations being carried out by the Israeli company NewMed Energy in Western Sahara, which are permitted by Morocco. This activity has sparked protests from opposition sectors and questions in the Spanish Senate about an alleged Moroccan intervention in Spanish jurisdictional waters. 

The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs stated in the Senate, in response to a question from Senator Pedro Manuel Sanginés, of the Plural Parliamentary Group, that the licence granted by the Moroccan Government to the Israeli multinational NewMed Energy to carry out hydrocarbon prospecting in the waters of Western Sahara ‘and other similar ones in the same area are systematically verified by the Government’ and that they are ‘outside the territorial and jurisdictional waters of Spain’.

José Manuel Albares sought to reassure the senators, stating that these drillings are being carried out ‘outside the territorial and jurisdictional waters of Spain’, which put an end to rumours that Morocco was intervening in the waters of the Spanish Canary Islands. 

The head of diplomacy emphasised that ‘these issues are being debated in a working group on the delimitation of maritime spaces with Morocco’. 

‘Everything related to this matter is being resolved within the scope of international law and must be resolved in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, on the basis of mutual agreement and in full respect of international law,’ explained the Spanish minister. 

Various political sectors in the Canary Islands consider that these interventions are taking place in Saharawi waters occupied de facto by the Moroccan government in a unilateral decision to which the Spanish government has not reacted. 

The Spanish government considers that the waters of Western Sahara, where these explorations would take place, do not belong to Spain either territorially or legally, which dissociates Spain from the intervention itself

Moroccan authorisation for the NewMed company is yet another episode in the good relations between Morocco and Israel. Both countries have been cooperating closely for years after the diplomatic rapprochement led by both nations in the wake of the famous Abraham Accords of September 2020, through which different Arab countries established diplomatic ties with the Israeli state under the auspices of the United States with a view to pacifying the Middle East and developing the territory.

Morocco entered into this dynamic after Donald Trump's government recognised the Moroccan character of Western Sahara in December 2020 in exchange for the North African country establishing relations with Israel. The rapprochement between Israel and Morocco has led to many political, economic and defence agreements in recent years.

In this dynamic, the Israeli company NewMed Energy, together with Adarco Energy Limited, signed several agreements with Morocco in 2022 related to oil and natural gas exploration and production activities in the Boujdour Atlantique exploration licence, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco. The sovereignty of this coast, which lies within the borders of Western Sahara, depends on an unfinished decolonisation process and it is a non-autonomous territory, according to the UN, pending the complete resolution of the Saharawi dispute. Although Morocco considers the Saharawi territory to be part of its southern provinces and has broad international support in this regard.