Photo credit: BBC
Spain is charting a different course from the prevailing political mood among Western nations regarding migration and polices concerning the African continent.
The country remains committed to continued expansion, while the US, the UK, France and Germany are all cutting back their development and budgets. Madrid has been hosting an African Union-backed “world conference on people of African descent” this week. Termed “AfroMadrid2025, it will discuss restorative justice and the creation of a new development fund.
Spain’s socialist-led government is seeking to deepen and diversify its engagement with the African continent. Last July, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares launched a new advisory council comprising prominent intellectual, diplomatic, and cultural figures, more than half of whom are African, to monitor the implementation of the detailed Spain-Africa strategy that his government published at the end of the year.
The difference between Spain’s approach and that of other Western countries is not just in spending but in tone and mindset – and nowhere more so than in dealing with migration.
Like other centre-left leaders, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez finds himself facing an electoral challenge from the radical right, which is largely driven by some voters’ concern over migration. While the opposition conservative People’s Party is comfortable with some immigration, but, for cultural reasons, wants to prioritize Latin Americans rather than Africans, the hard-line Vox party has been more radical.
The Spanish administration has to accommodate new arrivals, process their claims and manage their absorption.
