Interior negotiates to resume flights with immigrants from the Canary Islands to Morocco

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, this Thursday at the Madrid Casino. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hopes that "next week some" of the connections with Morocco will resume, in what would constitute a first step towards the normalization of bilateral relations.

Interior sources acknowledge that, once Moroccan airspace is reopened, which will allow the flow of commercial aircraft from Monday, negotiations are being held with its authorities to resume repatriation flights for immigrants from the Canary Islands, although they warn that the permit will not be automatic. and general, since it is necessary to complete the health protocols and authorize each case of repatriation.

Rabat suspended immigrant repatriation flights in April 2021 and all international flights on November 29, to stop the omicron variant from entering the country; while maritime passenger traffic has been suspended since March 2020, at the start of the pandemic. Morocco has announced that it will reopen its ports and airports next Monday, but sources from the Port Authority that manages the ports of Tarifa and Algeciras indicated this Friday afternoon that they have not been informed so far by Morocco about the opening of connections maritime from February 7. Government sources acknowledge that Morocco is hindering the resumption of maritime routes from Cadiz ports alleging that,Contrary to what happens with the ships that come from France and Italy, the duration of the trip is not enough to have the results of a PCR test on passengers.

Since Morocco closed passenger transport coming from Spain, the ports of Algeciras and Tarifa have stopped boarding 10 million passengers bound for the ports of Tangier and Tangier Med. Freight transport always remained operational during the pandemic between Tanger Med and the port of Algeciras.

The aforementioned Spanish source from the Port Authority indicated that if Morocco opened maritime circulation next Monday, the shipping companies would be prepared to start in the shortest possible time: “The ships that transport merchandise in Algeciras are the same ones that transport passengers.

With which, they could be operational immediately.

As for the port of Tarifa, which is exclusively for passengers, the shipping companies would also be ready very soon”.

In the last two summers, Rabat has already excluded the Spanish ports from the Operation Crossing the Strait, which was carried out from ports in France and Italy;

and last December the Moroccan Ministry of Health justified the repatriation of its nationals on flights from Portugal alleging the alleged lack of health controls at Spanish airports.

This time, however, the Spanish Foreign Ministry trusts that the attitude of the Moroccan authorities will be different.

The panorama seems to have changed after the Government agreed to Morocco's request to regasify in Spain liquefied gas (LNG) purchased by Rabat on the international market and send it to the neighboring country through the Maghreb-Europe (GME) gas pipeline, which until Last November it brought Algerian gas to Europe.

Morocco lacks regasification plants, while Spain, with six, has excess capacity in this sector.

Diplomatic sources stress that it is the first time in many years that Morocco asks Spain for a favor, contrary to what usually happens, which reflects the situation of interdependence between the two neighboring countries.

The risk is that the gesture may raise suspicions in Algeria, with which Spain has promised not to resell to Morocco even a cubic meter of the gas it supplies (42% of its total consumption).

The Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, did not want to reveal this Thursday if the Algerian authorities have been informed of the agreement with Morocco and what their reaction has been.

“I am not going to publicly discuss international relations issues of this nature,” he said, when asked at an informative breakfast organized by the Spanish Maritime Cluster.

The head of Spanish diplomacy has combined optimism and caution in dealing with the diplomatic crisis with Morocco, which has been going on for eight months, and has refused to answer the question of whether the maritime line through the Strait will be resumed, alleging that he trusts that this is the case, but that the question would have to be raised by Rabat. "I think everything will pick up again," he added, "probably not as quickly as Twitter would like, but much more solidly than one can imagine."

Albares has once again asked for patience, claiming that the crisis "should not be closed falsely or partially, even if that is slower", but he has been convinced that results will be seen "very soon".

And he added that it is about laying the foundations for a relationship model "with much more depth and a strategic nature", in which "inadmissible" situations cannot be repeated, such as the unilateral delimitation of territorial waters.

This issue, he stressed, affects borders, "and what is true in the East [referring to the Ukraine crisis] has to be true in the South".