The Canary Islands as a platform from Europe to Morocco
José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. /
politics
The Minister of Foreign Affairs considers that this proposal will be good for the archipelago
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, stated this Wednesday that
The Canary Islands “should be the platform for Spain and Europe towards Morocco” and has invited the political representatives of the community to work together on that goal.
«If the Canary Islands are Spain's platform towards Africa, and that is what I am going to promote next week in
my trip to the Canary Islands, my proposal to you and to the Canarians is that it should be even more the platform of Spain and Europe towards Morocco; it will be beneficial for the Canary Islands; let's work together“, said the minister in response in Congress to a question from the deputy of Nueva Canarias Pedro Quevedo.
The Canarian parliamentarian, who asked the minister about relations between Spain and Morocco and their impact on the Canary Islands, pointed out that there is a "widespread concern" on the islands after
the change in the Government's position regarding the Sahara and has stated that "it is not enough" with what he has described as a "well-intentioned attitude" of the executive in relation to the neighboring country.
"What reassures the Canary Islands has not yet arrived, because there have been many years with a non-positive evolution of events," argued Quevedo, who added: "the facts for now do not prove that we are really working in the direction of the cooperation and respect.
The concern expressed by the deputy from Nueva Canarias has to do with the fact that "international legality has been violated" with the Sahara and that
«The permanent instability in that area of the world affects the interests of the Canary Islands»and more specifically with the delimitation of territorial waters, oil prospecting in Morocco and the possible use of immigration as a "political tool".
In his response, Albares declared that the "new stage of collaboration and transparency" between Spain and Morocco "is good for the Canary Islands" and, in addition, the Government wants to develop it "together with those autonomous communities and cities that most directly have to win of this new spirit of collaboration”, among them Canarias.
Regarding the maritime boundaries between the two countries, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has indicated that at the meeting of the corresponding working group to be held in June, after 15 years without meetings, "we will be able to speak with Morocco, always within international law, of the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 and looking for it to be mutually beneficial«
Regarding the Sahara, he reiterated that "it is a stalled conflict that has lasted half a century and we cannot allow it to last half a century more" and has pointed out that "the solution has to be a mutually acceptable United Nations solution".
