🔗 Share this article

Spain is charting a markedly separate direction from numerous Western nations when it comes to migration policies and cooperation with the continent of Africa.

Whereas states such as the United States, UK, France and Germany are reducing their development aid budgets, the Spanish government continues dedicated to expanding its engagement, even from a reduced baseline.

Recent Developments

This week, the Madrid has been hosting an continent-endorsed "global summit on persons of African origin". The Madrid African conference will discuss corrective fairness and the creation of a innovative support mechanism.

This constitutes the latest indication of how the Spanish administration is seeking to deepen and broaden its involvement with the continent that lies just a short distance to the southern direction, over the Mediterranean crossing.

Policy Structure

During summer International Relations Head Madrid's top envoy initiated a new advisory council of distinguished academic, diplomatic and cultural figures, more than half of them African, to oversee the delivery of the comprehensive Spain-Africa strategy that his government unveiled at the close of the prior year.

New embassies south of the Sahara, and cooperative ventures in enterprise and education are scheduled.

Immigration Control

The difference between Madrid's strategy and that of others in the West is not just in expenditure but in perspective and mindset – and nowhere more so than in addressing population movement.

Like elsewhere in Europe, Government Leader Madrid's chief executive is seeking methods to contain the arrival of undocumented migrants.

"From our perspective, the movement dynamic is not only a question of moral principles, mutual support and respect, but also one of logic," the government leader said.

Exceeding 45,000 individuals attempted the hazardous maritime passage from West African coastline to the overseas region of the Canaries recently. Calculations of those who perished while trying the crossing range between 1,400 to a astonishing 10,460.

Effective Measures

Madrid's government has to accommodate fresh migrants, review their cases and manage their absorption into wider society, whether temporary or more long-lasting.

However, in rhetoric distinctly separate from the confrontational statements that emanates from many European capitals, the Spanish administration publicly recognizes the difficult financial circumstances on the ground in the West African region that push people to risk their lives in the endeavor to achieve the European continent.

Additionally, it strives to exceed simply saying "no" to incoming migrants. Instead, it is developing creative alternatives, with a pledge to foster human mobility that are protected, orderly and regular and "reciprocally advantageous".

Economic Partnerships

While traveling to the Mauritanian Republic the previous year, the Spanish leader highlighted the contribution that migrants contribute to the Spanish economy.

The Spanish government supports training schemes for jobless young people in nations including the Senegalese Republic, especially for irregular migrants who have been returned, to support them in establishing sustainable income sources in their homeland.

And it has expanded a "rotational movement" initiative that gives persons from the region temporary permits to arrive in the Iberian nation for limited periods of periodic labor, mainly in agriculture, and then return.

Strategic Importance

The core principle underlying the Spanish approach is that the European country, as the continental nation closest to the mainland, has an vital national concern in the region's development toward comprehensive and lasting growth, and stability and safety.

That basic rationale might seem evident.

Yet of course previous eras had guided the Spanish nation down a noticeably unique course.

Apart from a several North African presences and a compact tropical possession – currently sovereign the Gulf of Guinea country – its territorial acquisition in the 1500s and 1600s had mainly been directed toward the Americas.

Prospective Direction

The heritage aspect includes not only advancement of Castilian, with an expanded presence of the Cervantes Institute, but also programmes to help the transfer of academic teachers and scholars.

Protection partnership, action on climate change, gender equality and an increased international engagement are unsurprising components in contemporary circumstances.

Nevertheless, the strategy also lays very public stress it allocates for assisting democratic values, the African Union and, in especial, the West African regional organization the Economic Community of West African States.

This represents welcome public encouragement for the entity, which is now experiencing substantial difficulties after witnessing its half-century celebration spoiled by the departure of the desert region countries – Burkina Faso, Mali and the Sahel territory – whose ruling military juntas have declined to adhere with its standard for political freedom and proper administration.

Simultaneously, in a communication aimed similarly at Spain's internal population as its continental allies, the external affairs department declared "assisting the African community abroad and the fight against racism and immigrant hostility are also crucial objectives".

Fine words of course are only a first step. But in contemporary pessimistic worldwide environment such terminology really does appear distinctive.