🔗 Share this article

Madrid is adopting a markedly separate path from many Western nations when it comes to movement regulations and relations toward the African continent.

Whereas nations including the US, Britain, France and Germany are reducing their foreign assistance funding, Madrid stays focused to enhancing its participation, albeit from a reduced baseline.

Current Programs

Currently, the capital city has been accommodating an AU-supported "global summit on people of African descent". The African diaspora summit will discuss corrective fairness and the creation of a new development fund.

This represents the newest evidence of how the Spanish administration is working to enhance and broaden its involvement with the region that sits merely a brief span to the southern direction, across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Governmental Approach

During summer Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares launched a fresh consultative body of renowned scholarly, international relations and heritage experts, over 50 percent of them of African origin, to supervise the execution of the comprehensive Madrid-Africa plan that his leadership published at the close of the prior year.

Fresh consular offices south of the Sahara, and collaborations in enterprise and academic are planned.

Movement Regulation

The distinction between Spain's approach and that of different European countries is not just in expenditure but in attitude and outlook – and especially noticeable than in addressing immigration.

Comparable with different EU nations, Government Leader the Spanish premier is looking for ways to contain the entry of undocumented migrants.

"For us, the movement dynamic is not only a question of moral principles, solidarity and respect, but also one of logic," the administration head said.

More than 45,000 people undertook the dangerous ocean journey from the Atlantic African shore to the island territory of the Canaries the previous year. Estimates of those who lost their lives while making the attempt vary from 1,400 to a astonishing 10,460.

Effective Measures

Madrid's government must house fresh migrants, evaluate their applications and manage their absorption into larger population, whether transient or more permanent.

Nonetheless, in language noticeably distinct from the confrontational statements that comes from many European capitals, the Sanchez government publicly recognizes the difficult financial circumstances on the ground in the West African region that force persons to risk their lives in the endeavor to achieve the European continent.

And it is trying to transcend simply saying "no" to recent entrants. Rather, it is developing creative alternatives, with a commitment to foster human mobility that are secure, organized and regular and "mutually beneficial".

Financial Collaboration

While traveling to the Mauritanian Republic the previous year, Sanchez highlighted the input that migrants make to the national finances.

Madrid's administration finances educational programs for unemployed youth in nations including the Senegalese Republic, especially for undocumented individuals who have been repatriated, to help them develop viable new livelihoods in their native country.

Additionally, it enlarged a "circular migration" initiative that offers individuals from West Africa short-term visas to enter Spanish territory for defined timeframes of periodic labor, mainly in agriculture, and then come home.

Geopolitical Relevance

The fundamental premise guiding Spain's engagement is that Spain, as the European country closest to the region, has an vital national concern in the region's development toward equitable and enduring progress, and peace and security.

This fundamental reasoning might seem obvious.

However history had taken the Iberian state down a noticeably unique course.

Apart from a several North African presences and a compact tropical possession – currently sovereign the Central African nation – its colonial expansion in the 16th and 17th Centuries had mostly been oriented overseas.

Forward Vision

The cultural dimension includes not only advancement of Castilian, with an increased footprint of the language promotion body, but also schemes to assist the transfer of scholarly educators and scholars.

Protection partnership, initiatives concerning global warming, gender equality and an increased international engagement are predictable aspects in contemporary circumstances.

However, the plan also places significant emphasis it allocates for supporting democratic ideas, the pan-African body and, in particular, the sub-Saharan cooperative body Ecowas.

This will be welcome public encouragement for the organization, which is currently under severe pressure after witnessing its half-century celebration marred by the withdrawal of the desert region countries – Burkina Faso, the Malian Republic and the Sahel territory – whose ruling military juntas have refused to comply with its standard for political freedom and effective leadership.

Concurrently, in a communication directed equally toward Spain's internal population as its sub-Saharan partners, the international relations office said "supporting the African diaspora and the battle against prejudice and xenophobia are also essential focuses".

Fine words of course are only a beginning stage. But in contemporary pessimistic worldwide environment such language really does stand out.