The recent high-level summit between Spain and Morocco in Madrid was intended to be the ultimate diplomatic punctuation mark on the Western approach to North Africa. Following the United Nations Security Council’s endorsement of Rabat's autonomy plan for Western Sahara, the moment was meant to consolidate Spain’s role as the indispensable European bridge to its stable, pro-Western neighbor.
Instead, the summit immediately revealed a profound schism within the Spanish government, turning a diplomatic opportunity into a dramatic display of strategic paralysis that is now directly threatening the integrity of the entire Mediterranean security architecture.
The internal political sabotage was instantaneous and highly visible. While Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hosted his Moroccan counterpart and signed 14 cooperation agreements, cementing a bilateral trade relationship worth over €22.6 billion, his own coalition partner, Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz, publicly boycotted the meeting. As the leader of the far-left Sumar party, Diaz used the platform to reiterate fierce opposition to the UN-backed resolution, declaring on social media that Spain "cannot yield a centimeter of Sahrawi land" and reinforcing support for the Polisario Front’s self-determination demands.
This move was not merely domestic political theater; it was a devastating failure of foreign policy coherence. By empowering the Polisario Front's rejectionist stance and signaling to adversaries like Algeria-who abstained from the UN vote -that the Western consensus is negotiable, Spain actively introduced instability into a conflict that its allies are working to freeze.The resulting diplomatic chaos ensures that the Saharan dispute persists as a frozen conflict, driven by competing narratives and internal political friction rather than a decisive, unified political solution.
The Polisario Front was immediately able to leverage this internal Spanish disarray, even issuing warnings that Morocco’s strategic ambitions could eventually threaten Spanish territory like the Canary Islands.
But the government’s betrayal of strategic stability runs far deeper than its inability to manage its coalition’s ideological fixations over the Western Sahara. The more significant and profoundly hostile action against the transatlantic security framework is Spain’s recent adoption of Royal Decree-Law 10/2025.
In reaction to the conflict in Gaza, the Spanish government enacted a total prohibition on the export and import of defense materials and dual-use goods to and from Israel. This decree goes further by banning transit authorizations for fuels with potential military use destined for Israel. Regardless of the stated humanitarian motives, this unprecedented national arms embargo against a key US and Western security partner is an act of ideological projection that places political signaling above geopolitical strategy.
The crucial intersection of these two strategic failures-the political sabotage over the Sahara and the diplomatic sanctioning of Israel-lies in the indispensable Morocco-Israel defense nexus.
Morocco has successfully leveraged the Abraham Accords and the US recognition of its sovereignty to become a crucial security integrator on Africa’s northern edge.Rabat is rapidly acquiring advanced Israeli defense systems, including drones and artillery, as it modernizes its military and moves away from older European equipment.More importantly, Morocco and Israel are now regular participants in US Africa Command (AFRICOM)-led military exercises, such as the African Lion drills.
This shared operational presence not only enhances interoperability but also positions Morocco as the gateway for integrating Israeli defense technology and expertise into the broader US-African security architecture. This military dividend is essential for countering the expanding threat of jihadist groups in the Sahel and, critically, for checking the aggressive military entrenchment of Russia in Libya, which is using the North African state to establish a forward operating base to threaten NATO’s southern flank.
Spain’s embargo, therefore, is not a symbolic slap on the wrist; it is an attack on the logistical and technological integrity of the southern security front. By cutting off Israel, Spain is imposing friction on the supply chain and cooperation that is actively building Moroccan defense capacity against shared threats.
Madrid's two-pronged assault-sabotaging the political solution to the Western Sahara by accommodating internal extremists, while simultaneously sanctioning the security partner vital to Morocco's defense modernization-transforms Spain from a necessary bridge into a strategic liability. The government, driven by internal ideological pressures and an apparent willingness to appeal to anti-Israel sentiments, is sacrificing long-term strategic coherence for short-term political gains.
If key transatlantic allies are to maintain the stability of the Maghreb and prevent the further exploitation of this region by great power competitors, they must demand a fundamental change in Madrid’s approach. The security of the Mediterranean’s southern flank cannot tolerate a scenario where a core NATO member is actively working to undermine the most effective stability structures in the region.
Spain must choose to either uphold its commitments to the Western security framework and the Abraham Accords, or accept the designation of a strategically unreliable actor. The fragility of the consensus-exposed both in the diplomatic salons of Madrid and in the halls of the Spanish parliament-is an open invitation to chaos that the entire West can ill-afford.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx