Spain Withholds Controversial Sánchez Letter on Western Sahara Policy Shift

In this letter, the head of the Spanish government aligned himself with the Moroccan position to resolve the conflict in the Sahara. Although deputies have asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, for the letter, they have not received a clear answer, reports El Español.

Faced with this mystery, deputy Jon Iñarritu asked the government for explanations, which replied that it did not need to know the content of the letter to be aware of the relationship between Spain and Morocco. Yet most politicians and the general public became aware of the existence of this letter thanks to a press release from the Moroccan Royal House in March 2022.

However, this press release contained only a few sentences written by Sánchez and not the original document, as the newspaper El Español recalled. The Council for Transparency and Good Governance has nevertheless asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide an original copy of the letter, a Spanish transcript and the document sending the letter to the newspaper El Debate, without success.

This opacity on the part of the Spanish government is all the more surprising, the newspaper notes, as the Spanish law on transparency does not provide for a system of sanctions in case of infringement, unlike most European countries.