Spain’s Sanchez Ousts Foreign Minister After Morocco Demands Removal Over Polisario Leader Entry

Morocco would have requested the departure of Gonzales Laya during a secret meeting held in Rabat on July 2, 2021, between a Spanish delegation led by the Spanish ambassador to Rabat, Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner, and his Moroccan counterpart in Madrid, Karima Benyaich, who had been recalled to Rabat for consultations. "Only certain members of the royal cabinet are aware" of this meeting, indicates the National Intelligence Center (CNI) in a report published on July 8 of the same year and to which El Confidencial had access.

Two days later, on July 10, 2021, Pedro Sanchez, as part of a reshuffle, thanked González Laya and appointed José Manuel Albares in her place. During his inauguration on July 12, 2021, the new head of Spanish diplomacy stressed the need to "strengthen relations with Morocco, a great friend and neighbor to the south". Morocco had demanded the departure of González Laya from the Spanish government as a precondition for the opening of negotiations with Spain. The two countries were going through a serious crisis after the reception of Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, at the San Pedro de Logroño hospital due to complications related to Covid-19.

The Moroccan press had welcomed the dismissal of Gonzalez Laya, considering that she "paid dearly for her irresponsible attitude that allowed the clandestine reception of the leader of the Polisario separatists", and hailing this "first step" by Sanchez towards Morocco. However, the decision to allow Brahim Ghali to enter Spain does not come from Gonzales Laya, who only transmitted the request of her Algerian counterpart, Sabri Boukadoum, to Sanchez, who gave his favorable agreement after consulting several security experts and a few members of his government, including the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

Pedro Sanchez finally decided to let Ghali in "for humanitarian reasons", and not to inform Rabat. But the Directorate General of Studies and Documentation (DGED) of Morocco would have had the information thanks to the Pegasus spyware that infected the mobile phones of Pedro Sanchez and the Ministers of the Interior and Defense in the spring of 2021. Moreover, the dismissal of Gonzales Laya was not enough for Morocco, which demanded that Spain change its position on the Sahara, the same source affirms. In March 2022, Sanchez expressed Spain’s support for the Moroccan autonomy plan, considered "the most serious, credible and realistic basis" for resolving the conflict in the Sahara.