In Spain, the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies, this Thursday, June 20, voted on a proposal initiated by the Popular Party, non-binding for the government, calling for “a return to national consensus” on the question of Western Sahara.
The text devoted a passage to the airspace of the Sahara and the Atlantic maritime borders between Morocco and Spain, requiring the left-wing executive to “respect Spanish sovereignty” during the negotiations of these two files with Rabat, report Iberian media.
The PSOE deputies voted against this point while the groups of Vox, PNV (Basque Nationalist Party), ERC (Catalan Republican Left), BNG (Galician Nationalist Bloc) and Bildu (Basque separatists) opted for abstention. On the other hand, PP, Sumar, Junts (Catalan separatists), Canarian Coalition and UPN (Union of the People of Navarre, close to the PP) voted in favor of this point. An adhesion which avoided its rejection.
As a reminder, the Joint Declaration, published on April 7, 2022 following the talks in Rabat between King Mohammed VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, announced that “the working group on the delimitation of maritime spaces on the Atlantic coast will be reactivated, with the aim of making concrete progress” and that “discussions concerning airspace management will be initiated”. Rabat and Madrid have since started negotiations on these two points.
