Diplomatic Rift: Can Germany’s New Government Mend Ties with Morocco?

The new government of Olaf Schulz inherits a hot potato: it will have to manage the crisis with Morocco. The latter had suspended all contact, interaction or action both with its embassy in Rabat and with the cooperation agencies and German political foundations "due to deep misunderstandings with the Federal Republic of Germany on the fundamental issues of the kingdom". The points of friction remain Germany’s position on the Sahara, its interference in Morocco’s internal affairs, the exclusion of Rabat from negotiations on the future of Libya at a conference organized in Berlin in January 2020 and the recent Transparency International report on corruption.

"Given its leftist tendency, it would be naive to think that the new government, led by the socialist Olaf Schulz, would be less hostile to Morocco than its predecessor, at least on the Sahara issue. Everything depends on who will take the reins of the Foreign Ministry," analyzes Emmanuel Dupuy, president of the Institute for Prospective and European Security in an interview with L’Opinion. "If the Greens lead German diplomacy, Berlin’s attitude will be as attentive to the grievances of the Polisario as was that of Spain through Podemos, which vigorously supports the Polisario separatism," he adds. According to him, this scenario is all the more likely as the leader of the Alliance 90 / The Greens, Annalena Baerbock, has a good chance of being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. "In short, the German Greens will stick, in this case, to their traditional position aimed at supporting Sahrawi separatism," he continues.

Emmanuel Dupuy also pointed out that although the Social Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) are more pragmatic than the Greens, the new German Chancellor Olaf Schulz will have to take into account the position of the Greens regarding Morocco and the Sahara issue. However, "the political friendships (center-right parties) between the FDP and certain Moroccan political parties, such as Istiqlal, could "offset" the doctrinal position of the German Greens,"