THE GREEK KALENDS

The decision of the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, to approve Morocco's plan on Western Sahara is a wound that he continues to fester as it has led to an unwanted conflict with Algeria.

The problem is acute because Sánchez has not limited himself to supporting autonomy, but rather has given Morocco ownership of the former Spanish colony, as Donald Trump did at the end of his term.

This is so because the plan established by Rabat explicitly says that the autonomy granted to the Sahrawis “will be carried out under the sovereignty of Morocco”, so that autonomy and sovereignty are inseparable, and this is what causes harm.

If Pedro Sánchez had proposed a new statement of the Moroccan plan, to preserve the position of the United Nations, this crisis would have been avoided.

It does not take a magician to support a new statement that, in substance, said: "The two parties (Morocco and the Polisario) accept the autonomy of Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, limited in time by mutual agreement, and commit themselves, by through negotiations, to set the date of an electoral consultation, supervised and controlled by the United Nations, which allows knowing the real will of the Saharawi people through the ballot boxes”.

This statement would have preserved Sánchez from the fury of his opposition and that of the party that makes up the government coalition, although to tell the truth it is difficult to imagine that Morocco could accept it in those terms. In any case, the president would have shown the profile of a statesman of him.

The second error concerns the two Spanish autonomous cities. Sánchez has celebrated that Morocco recognizes that Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish. It has been said that there will therefore be a border line materialized by a Customs, and people from Ceuta and Melilla can rest assured that they will not suffer another Green March.

But is the president sure that this is really going to happen? Morocco has not changed a single letter of its internal policy aimed at reaffirming its sovereignty over the Spanish "prisons", although it admits that the current situation of both can continue as it is while the day and time comes to demand them, and perhaps with something more than words.

But Pedro Sánchez tells us that there is no longer a problem with the Spanishness of the two cities and that everything is underway and is getting closer… with the Greek Kalends?