In public, Morocco raises the tone of its rhetoric over Ceuta and Melilla, with Moroccan officials speaking of allegedly historic territories, supposed historical rights, and a policy of patience and persistence. But behind the doors of diplomacy, the picture appears far more submissive.
What Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares revealed about his conversation with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, paints a politically revealing picture. When Madrid confronted Rabat over statements made by Morocco’s ministers of Justice and Religious Endowments regarding Ceuta and Melilla, Bourita did not present Albares with a firm and unequivocal government position. Instead, he explained that the statements had been made in an electoral context, referring to the elections scheduled for September 23, and that those ministers had spoken as representatives of their respective political parties rather than as members of the government, stressing that their remarks did not represent Morocco’s official position.
The Spanish response, however, was blunt and direct: “That explanation is not enough for me.”
This is where the contradiction exposing the confusion in Morocco’s rhetoric becomes evident. While slogans calling for the “recovery” of Ceuta and Melilla are raised domestically, Morocco’s foreign minister found himself compelled to explain and justify statements made by Moroccan officials to his Spanish counterpart, seeking to portray them as nothing more than electoral positions.
Albares left little room for maneuver. He made clear that, regardless of their electoral context, such statements were unacceptable and damaging to Spanish-Moroccan relations. He stressed that Madrid would not accept any questioning of its sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla and that Spain does not negotiate with Rabat over the status of the two cities.
Thus, the mask falls off the duality of the rhetoric: loud rhetoric at home, diplomatic justification abroad.
If the statements by Wahbi and Toufiq do not represent the Moroccan government, then why were they made in the first place by two Moroccan ministers? And if they were merely electoral positions, why did Rabat have to explain their context to Madrid? More importantly, why did the Moroccan government find itself in a position of defence and clarification before a Spanish government that had clearly declared that the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla is not a matter for negotiation?
What makes the matter even more striking is that Minister of Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs Ahmed Toufiq is not affiliated with any political party and is not participating in the electoral campaign.
More embarrassing still, the crisis did not stop at the statements themselves. Spain summoned the Moroccan ambassador in Madrid to formally protest them, before Albares revealed the substance of his conversation with Bourita. In this way, the slogans voiced by Moroccan officials evolved into a genuine diplomatic crisis with Madrid.
This is not merely an electoral slip of the tongue, as the Moroccan justification attempts to portray it. Rather, it exposes the gap between populist rhetoric directed at the domestic audience and the pragmatic calculations that come into play when the issue reaches the diplomatic table. Indeed, Albares went even further this time by effectively shutting down Morocco’s public discourse on Ceuta and Melilla — an unprecedented development.
Between Rabat’s rhetoric and Madrid’s position, one question remains that no electoral justification can conceal: Was Morocco serious when its officials declared their commitment to reclaiming Ceuta and Melilla, or was the matter merely an electoral calculation whose consequences Bourita was quickly forced to disavow before Madrid?
In any case, the truth has emerged from behind closed doors. When Moroccan rhetoric grew louder, Madrid stepped in to put it to the test of diplomacy. Rabat’s answer was: “It’s just about elections.” Albares’s response was: “That explanation is not enough for me.”
And that alone is enough to sum up the scale of the predicament.
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