On the question of the transfer of control of airspace in the Sahara, the Spanish government has not yet given any news. Faced with questions from deputies, the responses from the Iberian executive remain evasive and do not give any indication of the progress of discussions between Morocco and Spain.
While Spanish media sources have revealed, citing informed sources, that between 15 and 20% of the airspace of the Sahara has now come under the control of Morocco following a transfer of management operated by Spain, the Madrid government neither confirmed nor denied.
It must be said that several bilateral issues still remain unresolved since the adoption of the joint Moroccan-Spanish declaration, published following the talks in Rabat between King Mohammed VI and the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, on April 7 2022.
These points are still under discussion between the two countries, and continue to be the subject of consultations between Rabat and Madrid, and it seems that point 7 of this joint declaration is one of them.
Indeed, point 7 indicates that “discussions concerning airspace management will be initiated” between Morocco and Spain. Asked about this, the government of Pedro Sanchez returned the same response provided on December 18 by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs to the plenary of the Lower House of Parliament, confirming that the executive was determined to carry out this sheet of action. road.
The Spanish executive, who was again questioned by MP Javier Armas, referred to the written response of José Manuel Albares who had called on the parliamentary group of EH Bildu (Basque independence) not to relay “the People’s Party’s misinformation which conveys strange theories on the transfer of control of the airspace of Western Sahara to Morocco”.
“Private airline decisions are made between private companies and relevant agencies in the field of civil aviation and, therefore, they are technical decisions,” he had clarified. And to add that“there is a clear, transparent roadmap (from April 7, 2022, editor’s note) between Spain and Morocco that we are in the process of accomplishing.”
Note that last November, part of the Iberian press claimed, citing sources in the Spanish aeronautics sector, that the Spanish Ministry of Transport was studying the option of transferring management.
However, it was clarified that this is not a pure and simple transfer of airspace, but a delegation of operational responsibilities concerning air navigation services (ATS).
