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Spain’s lower house has endorsed a law granting citizenship to tens of thousands of people born in western Sahara, a move likely to anger Morocco, which claims sovereignty over the disputed territory.
If confirmed by the Senate, the initiative risks adding a fresh strain to relations already tested after more than 70,000 migrants swam from Morocco to Spain’s north African exclave of Ceuta.
The bill was adopted on Thursday with 168 votes in favour, 31 against, while 145 lawmakers abstained.
It was put forward by Sumar, the radical leftwing party in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s ruling coalition. Sánchez has been at pains not to blame Morocco for the Ceuta crisis, wary of provoking another influx.
Western Sahara, a contested desert region about the size of the UK, and a Spanish territory until 1976, has long been a source of tension between Morocco and Spain. Rabat claims sovereignty over the territory, while Madrid only endorsed Morocco’s autonomy plan in 2022 after a previous migration crisis in Ceuta.
People born in western Sahara before 1977 and their descendants “have been in a state of legal and political limbo” for decades, Sumar told the FT. “Spain has a historical debt to the Sahrawi people,” it added.
The bill “seeks to recognise a right that was taken from them during the decolonisation process of the Sahara, a process that remains unresolved”, the political group said. Sumar estimates the measure could benefit up to 80,000 people.
The conservative People’s Party abstained, saying it supported restoring nationality to Sahrawis who had lost it but only through residency, not a naturalisation decree. The hard-right Vox party voted against, arguing that Spanish nationality had to be protected.
Granting citizenship to Sahrawis could further strain relations with Morocco, where sovereignty over western Sahara is a core tenet of the monarchy and a pillar of foreign policy. Rabat is likely to see the move as undermining its claim to the territory.
Samir Bennis, co-founder of Morocco World News, an English-language news website, posted on X that the law would “represent a great affront” to Morocco and could spark a “crisis”, arguing that it would create a Spanish base for Sahrawi separatism.
The UN still considers western Sahara a non-self-governing territory, but its efforts to hold a referendum on whether it should become part of Morocco or gain independence have stalled for decades.
Morocco has recently moved closer to its goal of securing international backing for its position. The US recognised Rabat’s claim in 2020 under Donald Trump, as part of a deal in which Morocco normalised relations with Israel, while France, the UK and Spain have endorsed Morocco’s plan to grant western Sahara autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.
The citizenship bill follows an amnesty law passed earlier this year that allowed more than 1mn people to seek to regularise their immigration status in Spain, fuelling accusations from Vox and other anti-immigration parties that Sánchez is “weakening the borders”.
The Spanish government on Wednesday declassified intelligence and security reports in the run-up to and during the Ceuta migrant influx, in an attempt to defuse criticism in Spain over its handling of the crisis. The intelligence centre of the Spanish armed forces reported that the Moroccan authorities displayed “passivity” towards the migrants.
On the eve of the event, Spain’s CNI intelligence agency alerted its Moroccan counterparts about a possible “attempt to enter Ceuta, either by swimming or by crossing the fence”, taking advantage of national holiday celebrations that could distract Moroccan security forces.
In a WhatsApp exchange with the Spanish government delegation in Ceuta the day before the crossings, the CNI flagged that multiple Moroccan social media accounts were urging people “to storm the fence and the sea” the following day.
The CNI acknowledged it “did not foresee the scale and nature of what ultimately took place”. While most migrants were repatriated within 24 hours, up to 10,000 migrants still remain in the Spanish exclave, according to local officials.
