Spain’s Double Standard and the Colonial Question of Ceuta and Melilla

Spain under Pedro Sánchez presents itself as a defender of decolonization, international law, and Palestinian statehood while preserving its own colonial enclaves in North Africa and obstructing key Atlantic allies. As Morocco strengthens its strategic alignment with Israel and the USA, Ceuta and Melilla are becoming the most exposed fault line in Madrid’s increasingly contradictory foreign policy.

Pedro Sánchez’s Spain has chosen to present itself as the moral conscience of the West, but always at the expense of the allies that guarantee its security, prosperity, and strategic stability. Madrid waves the banner of decolonization when convenient, denounces Israel with near-obsessive intensity, obstructs the United States on the Iran dossier, demands NATO protection while refusing to bear the serious burden of defense spending, and at the same time preserves in North Africa two colonial enclaves that survive only through force and historical inertia: Ceuta and Melilla.

The Hypocrisy of Selective Decolonization

The contradiction is obvious. Spain recognizes Palestine, accuses Israel of systematic violations of international law, speaks constantly of self-determination and anti-colonial justice, yet when those principles approach its own borders, territorial integrity suddenly becomes sacred dogma. Ceuta and Melilla, European enclaves on the Moroccan coast, are treated as untouchable imperial relics, while Madrid lectures the rest of the world on moral consistency. It is a double standard so glaring that it can no longer be ignored.

Rabat Understands Geopolitics, Madrid Does Not

Morocco, by contrast, understands the language of geopolitical reality. Rabat signed the Abraham Accords, consolidated strategic cooperation with Israel, and secured from the United States formal recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara—a diplomatic achievement Madrid was never able to seriously counter. Washington understands that Rabat is a reliable partner: it controls a critical regional space, cooperates on counterterrorism, energy security, migration management, and Mediterranean stability. Spain offers instead intermittent moralism, strategic ambiguity, and a constant temptation to undermine the Atlantic architecture from within.

Ceuta and Melilla as Strategic Leverage

It is hardly surprising that, in American and Israeli strategic circles, the idea of aligning more openly with Moroccan positions on Ceuta and Melilla is becoming less unthinkable. This does not necessarily mean a formalized policy, but it certainly represents a potential instrument of pressure. If Madrid insists on turning foreign policy into a platform for hostility toward Israel and obstruction toward the United States, then the question of the enclaves can become a perfectly legitimate lever. Spain has chosen to internationalize every conflict that suits its domestic politics; it cannot demand immunity when the same logic is applied to its own vulnerabilities.

The Weakest Point in Spain’s Narrative

Ceuta and Melilla are the weakest point in Spain’s moral discourse. If Sánchez wants to make decolonization his banner, he should begin at home. Morocco has claimed those territories for decades and now enjoys a far stronger network of international support than in the past. France has moved closer to Rabat’s position, the United Kingdom has supported Morocco’s autonomy proposal on Western Sahara, and the United States has a structural interest in strengthening a serious regional ally. In this context, Spain’s insistence on freezing the status quo forever looks increasingly like a historical privilege rather than an unquestionable legal principle.

The Jewish Dimension and Morocco’s Diplomatic Sophistication

Even on the symbolic level, Rabat has shown a sophistication Madrid has lost. The Moroccan kingdom has invested in recovering and promoting its Jewish heritage and has opened political and legislative space for strengthening citizenship rights for descendants of Moroccan Jews, including many Sephardic Jews and Israelis of Moroccan origin. It is both a civilizational and strategic choice: recognizing historical continuity and transforming it into diplomatic capital. Spain, which for years used the Sephardic question as a self-congratulatory gesture, now appears far less credible than Rabat in building a genuine relationship with that world.

Gibraltar and British Self-Defeat

The comparison with London is equally revealing. The Gibraltar agreement showed how Madrid uses European pressure to extract material advantages, especially in border control, taxation, and logistics. London, under a Labour government far more accommodating toward Brussels, accepted a compromise that gives Spain a direct role in Schengen controls and deeper economic integration of the territory. In practical terms, the United Kingdom conceded access and operational stability in exchange for commercial continuity, food supply security, and agricultural fluidity in the region. Once again, Madrid converted a historic dispute into strategic rent.

Sánchez’s Geopolitical Boomerang

But the difference between Gibraltar and Ceuta-Melilla is that on the latter Spain no longer fully controls the international framework. Here Madrid cannot invoke Europe without opening the door to an uncomfortable question: why does decolonization apply to others but not to Spain? Why should Western Sahara be interpreted one way and Ceuta another? Why should Israel accept lectures from a government that still maintains its own colonial enclaves in Africa?

Sánchez believed he could accumulate domestic political capital by attacking Israel and restricting American use of Spanish bases against Iran without strategic consequences. That is a deeply shortsighted reading. The United States does not easily forget those who obstruct its military projection in the Mediterranean, and Israel does not consider Spain’s activism in favor of diplomatic isolation irrelevant. When an ally becomes systematically hostile, the response does not always come through public statements; often it arrives through a silent reordering of strategic priorities.

Putting Madrid in the Corner

If Madrid wants to continue playing the game of elegant anti-Americanism and respectable anti-Zionism, it must accept that others may use the same rules against it. Ceuta and Melilla are not metaphysical taboos; they are geopolitical nodes. And if Spain insists on weaponizing decolonization as a selective instrument, it may soon find itself surrounded by precisely that logic.

That would be a form of historical justice. Imperfect, perhaps, but politically effective. And thoroughly deserved.