Spanish lawmakers on Thursday backed a law granting citizenship to tens of thousands of Western Saharans who were born when Spain ran the disputed territory now largely controlled by Morocco.
The vote comes at a particularly sensitive time for Madrid’s historically delicate relations with Rabat due to the migration crisis in Spain’s north African territory of Ceuta.
Parliament passed the initiative by 168 votes to 31, but it must obtain approval in the Senate before becoming law.
The text grants Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born before September 29, 1977 and to their children through a certificate of naturalisation, considering that date the effective end of decolonisation.
Although the exact number of beneficiaries is unknown, around 80,000 Sahrawis are believed to be eligible, with some estimates reaching almost 200,000 including the descendants.
READ MORE: Spain’s Congress approves granting citizenship to Sahrawis
Western Sahara has been largely controlled by Morocco since 1975, but the United Nations considers it a non-self-governing territory.
Morocco’s decades-old and ongoing conflict with the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, which seeks independence for the Sahrawi people, had long been a thorny issue for Spain.
But Madrid shifted its long-standing position of neutrality in 2022 and backed Rabat’s autonomy plan for the former Spanish colony as part of a diplomatic rapprochement.
Migration crisis
Madrid’s policy towards Rabat is now under fierce criticism after tens of thousands of migrants streamed into Ceuta from Morocco in late July’s unprecedented and deadly rush.
The leftist government has avoided blaming Morocco — which claims sovereignty over Ceuta and Spain’s other north African territory of Melilla — but the right accuses Rabat of orchestrating the surge for political motives.
Against this backdrop, the initiative to grant Spanish nationality to Sahrawis has divided opinion in Morocco but not prompted condemnation from the government.
Moroccan media quoted Ramadan Messaoud, a member of the Royal Advisory Council for Saharan Affairs, as saying in July that Rabat had “no problem” with Sahrawis obtaining Spanish citizenship.
Others had done so “over the past few years”, noted Messaoud, who is also president of the Sahrawi Association for Human Rights.
The initiative for Sahrawis follows a 2022 law granting Spanish nationality to the descendants of Spaniards who fled the country during the 1936-1939 civil war and General Francisco Franco’s 1939-1975 dictatorship.
The conservative and far-right opposition accuse Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of exploiting the measure to add to the electoral register a mass of left-leaning voters from abroad, mainly Latin America.
This week the Supreme Court provisionally suspended the voting rights of some of the beneficiaries ahead of next year’s general election, requiring more evidence of their ties to victims of repression.
Sánchez on Wednesday expressed his disagreement with the court and called on it to resolve the issue before the election, in which he will seek to extend his eight-year-old premiership.
