OVIEDO, Spain — Spain and Morocco held a landmark high-level summit in Madrid on Thursday, December 4, 2025, signing 14 cooperation agreements to strengthen bilateral relations despite sharp divisions within Spain’s governing coalition over the future of Western Sahara. The 13th Spain-Morocco High-Level Meeting, co-chaired by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Moroccan Head of Government Aziz Akhannouch, was described by the Spanish government as taking place at an “especially positive” moment for the two countries’ relationship.
Bilateral trade reached a historic €22.6 billion in 2024, making Morocco Spain’s leading trading partner in Africa and its seventh-largest globally. Spanish exports to Morocco are dominated by fuels, machinery, vehicles and electrical equipment, while Morocco supplies Spain with textiles, fish, fruit, vegetables and automotive components. Morocco is now the top destination for Spanish investment in Africa and the primary gateway for Spanish companies seeking access to West African markets.
The day before the official summit, more than 100 business leaders from both countries gathered at the headquarters of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) for the Morocco-Spain Economic Forum. Discussions focused on joint projects in water desalination and management, green hydrogen, railway infrastructure, renewable energy and the circular economy. Moroccan officials highlighted the kingdom’s allocation of 1.5 million acres for green hydrogen production and ongoing €650 million water-infrastructure programmes in which Spanish companies play a leading role. Spanish executives emphasized the complementary nature of the two economies and the potential for joint ventures across the African continent.
At the Moncloa Palace plenary session, the two governments formalised cooperation in a wide range of areas: digital public administration, tax coordination, disaster-risk reduction, feminist foreign policy, combating hate speech and disinformation, judicial cooperation via electronic means, teaching of Arabic language and Moroccan culture in Spanish institutions in Morocco, maritime fisheries, aquaculture, and the fight against illegal fishing. A memorandum on feminist diplomacy was signed personally by Foreign Ministers José Manuel Albares and Nasser Bourita. Both leaders also underscored the 2030 FIFA World Cup — which Spain, Morocco and Portugal will co-host — as a catalyst for deeper infrastructure collaboration, including high-speed rail links and port modernisation.
Security and migration control, long-standing pillars of the relationship, were reaffirmed. Morocco remains a key partner in managing irregular migration flows across the Strait of Gibraltar, which account for roughly one-third of all irregular arrivals to Europe.
The summit took place just weeks after the UN Security Council, on October 31, 2025, adopted Resolution 2797 renewing the mandate of the MINURSO mission and explicitly endorsing Morocco’s 2007 Autonomy Plan as the “most serious, realistic and credible” basis for resolving the decades-old Western Sahara conflict. The resolution passed 11–0 with abstentions from Russia, China and Pakistan. Spain has openly supported the autonomy plan since March 2022, a shift that ended a year-long diplomatic crisis with Rabat but provoked lasting friction inside Spain’s left-wing coalition.
Sumar, the junior partner in Pedro Sánchez’s government, boycotted the summit entirely. Deputy Prime Minister and Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz declared on Bluesky: “We cannot yield a single centimetre of Sahrawi land,” reiterating her party’s demand for a self-determination referendum that includes the option of independence. Several other Sumar ministers also stayed away. Sahrawi-Spanish MP Tesh Sidi accused the Socialist Party (PSOE) of “subordinating Spanish foreign policy to Moroccan interests” and invoked Spain’s historical responsibility as the former colonial power that withdrew from Western Sahara in 1975.
The Polisario Front, which administers refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, and seeks full independence for the territory, condemned the Madrid summit and warned that Morocco’s growing regional ambitions could one day extend to Spain’s Canary Islands — a fear rooted in nationalist rhetoric from the 1970s. The Front’s delegate in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, said the movement would remain “extremely vigilant” regarding the agreements signed in Madrid.
Algeria, Polisario’s main backer, expressed disappointment that the UN resolution omitted references to a referendum and has maintained a hard line against any solution that does not include independence as an option.
Despite the domestic controversy, both Sánchez and Akhannouch presented the meeting as a milestone in a “strategic, renewed and strengthened” partnership. The Spanish prime minister highlighted the human ties — more than 900,000 Moroccans live legally in Spain, and over three million people of Moroccan origin form one of the country’s largest diaspora communities — as well as shared interests in energy transition, food security and regional stability.
For Morocco, the summit consolidates international momentum behind its autonomy proposal at a time when the United States, France, the United Kingdom and now the UN Security Council have all endorsed it as the only viable path forward. For Spain, the agreements represent tangible economic gains and continued cooperation on migration and counter-terrorism, even at the cost of strained coalition unity and criticism from pro-Sahrawi activists and part of the Spanish left.
As both countries look toward the 2030 World Cup and deepening integration in green energy and transport, the Madrid summit has reaffirmed that pragmatic interests currently outweigh ideological differences — though the Western Sahara question continues to expose the fragility of Spain’s governing coalition and the limits of European unity on one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts.
