The foreign action of a State does not lie in having opinions about the world. It consists of ordering priorities within channels of continuity. Governments change; parliamentary majorities do too. National interests, on the other hand, evolve slowly. Precisely for this reason, innovation is only fruitful when it is supported by memory. And few countries have a diplomatic memory as extensive and rich as Spain.
Read more Interior had reports warning of the ‘call effect’ in Ceuta but «did not close the door»
Spain is one of those few actors whose trajectory is inseparable from the very formation of the modern world. Since the late 15th century, the anchors – the great veins: Mediterranean, Europe, and the Ocean – can already be recognized, which, with logically inevitable adaptations, have maintained extraordinary continuity. Not because Spain has remained still, but because it has known how to distinguish between the permanent and the circumstantial. “Middle powers” often feel the temptation to seek a distinctive diplomatic exceptionality. It is a legitimate aspiration, as long as it does not lead to forgetting what constitutes their true strength. Spain does not need – nor can it – reinvent itself every legislature. It needs to remember who it is. Foreign policy does not start from scratch with each Government. It is, perhaps more than any other public manifestation, the finished expression of the State’s interweaving.
When in November 1714 Philip V created by decree the First Secretariat of State and Office – the germ of our current Ministry of Foreign Affairs – he was not inventing an international policy. He was giving institutional form to a diplomatic and strategic experience accumulated over more than two centuries. The State became aware of the vulnerability that an external action exclusively dependent on the talent or intuition of each moment entails; it had to rest on the understanding of Spain’s lasting interests.
Those anchors have been and are three. The first, the Mediterranean, imposed by a geography that makes the Strait and North Africa an unavoidable focus. The second, Europe, the natural space of our strategic balance and channel of our contribution to the consolidation of the West. The third, the overseas dimension. It is worth stopping at this last one because it was not an inevitable consequence of material conditions. It was the crystallization of an extraordinary will to project beyond the immediate horizon, the expression of the genius and ingenuity that made Spain one of the protagonists of the first globalization. If the Mediterranean explains where we are, if Europe determines our ontology, the ocean develops our Plus Ultra.
Circumstances, alliances, instruments of power, and threats have changed. What has not changed is the imperative to think foreign action from those three anchors. To adapt them, yes; to replace them, hardly. It is striking, therefore, that much of the doctrinal texts that reflect – trying to structure – the Government’s actions these years start from a different objective: to reinvent Spain’s international role, to turn it into a “node,” a “bridge,” an actor with an innovative profile. This search can be related to the anxiety stemming from a changing world. But the most effective global policy is rarely the unprecedented; it is usually the most constant. Its mission is not to particularize a Government, but to defend the constant interests of a nation; it does not consist of discovering new directions, but in preserving the sense of orientation when the landscape changes. Spain does not need to invent a place in the multilateral concert; it needs to intelligently exercise the one given by its geographical position, its accumulated experience, and a vocation forged over time.
International reputation is not improvised. It accumulates. It is the result of decades of coherence, of alliances maintained even in disagreement, and of predictable positions for allies and adversaries. Leaders can introduce changes; what they cannot afford is to give the impression of changing criteria and course at the whim of Government vicissitudes or personal or partisan causes. Because trust, once eroded, takes much longer to rebuild than to lose. Thus, foreign action probably constitutes the quintessential state policy.
This is the perspective from which, in my opinion, it is appropriate to view what happened in Ceuta. The public debate these days revolves around important issues: what responsibility lies with the Moroccan authorities in this serious violation of sovereignty, which has swept away lives and caused havoc; how to interpret – given the value of symbols in Moroccan culture – that the invasion occurred on the day of the Throne Festival; whether intelligence service reports were shared – and if so with whom – whether they were well-founded; whether the Government reacted with the diligence, unity, and coordination required; or what tactical errors may have been made. All of this deserves an answer; and let us hope it has one. But none of these questions reaches the heart of the problem.
The truly relevant issue is deeper: do our rulers think foreign action as state policy guided by half a millennium of experience, or do they execute it in a succession of positions dictated by the situation? The Atlantic link is a good field of observation. No national interest advises us to erect ourselves vis-à-vis the United States as a rhetorical adversary of reference, which is one thing the discrepancy between allies and quite another to make distancing an international identity hallmark. Spain gains influence as a reliable ally precisely because that condition multiplies its capacity for dialogue. The second example is Europe. It is difficult to understand that, when immigration constitutes an existential issue for many partners and is reconfiguring the European debate, Spain opts to distinguish itself, with its disorderly promotion – devoid of any explanation and consultation – of immigration, against restrictive positions shared by a broad majority of member states. The consequence is not to strengthen our leadership but to diminish our capacity to build majorities precisely where we need them most.
With Morocco, it is advisable to avoid two equally harmful mistakes: demonizing it and underestimating it. Its per capita income remains modest and its inequalities deep. Undoubtedly, it is not a liberal democracy. But reducing Morocco to these shortcomings or taking refuge in the ease of ad hominem criticism of Mohammed VI prevents appreciating the truly relevant aspect for the reflection at hand. Since its independence, the Alaouite Kingdom has developed a foreign policy characterized by consistency, a very clear hierarchy of priorities, and the intelligent use of all levers of power at its disposal. That persistence has translated into diplomatic successes – from Washington to sub-Saharan capitals – regardless of the judgment we may have. Assessing that reality does not imply assuming its approaches. It means recognizing that our counterpart acts with a strategic fixity that should always be kept in mind.
Spain needs to recover keys that we should never have lost: alliances do not limit the capacity for dialogue; they make it possible. States mediate because they have solid anchors; they do not acquire those anchors because they proclaim their availability to act as mediators. Bridges are tools of foreign policy; they can never become its base. We must intensify relations with Asia, with Africa, and frankly value our capital in Latin America. We must understand the shift of the economic center of gravity towards the Indo-Pacific and dialogue with the actors that count. All this is part of a coherent design. But none of these opportunities replaces the triad exposed. They complement it.
What happened in Ceuta will pass, as other crises have passed before and those that will inevitably come will pass. The neighbors will remain the same, as will our sovereign reality, geography, and permanent interests; those deep veins that for centuries have fed our global projection. Returning to them does not mean taking refuge in the past. It means remembering that continuity is not the enemy of change, but the condition to manage it prudently. Because the foreign action of a State is based on distinguishing, without deviation or faltering, between the permanent and the circumstantial.