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Madrid is adopting a noticeably unique course from many developed states when it comes to movement regulations and relations toward the African continent.

While states such as the US, UK, French Republic and Germany are cutting back their international support allocations, Spain stays focused to enhancing its participation, even from a lower starting point.

New Initiatives

This week, the Madrid has been welcoming an African Union-backed "world conference on people of African descent". The African diaspora summit will discuss restorative justice and the creation of a fresh assistance program.

This constitutes the most recent sign of how Madrid's leadership is working to enhance and diversify its engagement with the mainland that rests only a brief span to the south, over the Mediterranean crossing.

Governmental Approach

This past summer International Relations Head the Spanish diplomat initiated a new advisory council of renowned scholarly, international relations and arts representatives, over 50 percent of them from Africa, to oversee the delivery of the comprehensive Madrid-Africa plan that his government published at the end of last year.

New embassies south of the Sahara, and cooperative ventures in enterprise and academic are planned.

Movement Regulation

The difference between Madrid's strategy and that of others in the West is not just in funding but in attitude and outlook – and nowhere more so than in handling immigration.

Like other European locations, Prime Minister Madrid's chief executive is seeking methods to control the arrival of irregular arrivals.

"From our perspective, the immigration situation is not only a issue of humanitarian values, unity and dignity, but also one of rationality," the prime minister commented.

More than 45,000 individuals made the perilous sea crossing from West African coastline to the island territory of the Atlantic islands the previous year. Approximations of those who died while trying the crossing vary from 1,400 to a astonishing 10,460.

Effective Measures

The Spanish administration needs to shelter new arrivals, review their cases and manage their absorption into broader community, whether transient or more enduring.

Nonetheless, in language markedly different from the hostile messaging that emanates from many European capitals, the Sanchez government frankly admits the hard economic realities on the ground in the West African region that force persons to jeopardize their safety in the attempt to attain EU territory.

And it is trying to exceed simply refusing entry to new arrivals. Rather, it is developing creative alternatives, with a pledge to foster human mobility that are safe, organized and regular and "reciprocally advantageous".

Commercial Cooperation

On his trip to the Mauritanian Republic recently, Madrid's representative stressed the input that migrants provide for the Iberian economic system.

The Spanish government supports skill development initiatives for youth without work in nations including the Senegalese Republic, particularly for undocumented individuals who have been returned, to help them develop workable employment options in their native country.

Furthermore, it increased a "rotational movement" initiative that provides individuals from West Africa temporary permits to arrive in the Iberian nation for defined timeframes of periodic labor, primarily in farming, and then come home.

Strategic Importance

The basic concept underlying the Spanish approach is that the Iberian nation, as the continental nation nearest to the continent, has an crucial domestic priority in the continent's advancement toward equitable and enduring progress, and tranquility and protection.

The core justification might seem evident.

However history had taken the Spanish nation down a noticeably unique course.

Besides a few Maghreb footholds and a compact tropical possession – today's independent Equatorial Guinea – its territorial acquisition in the 16th and 17th Centuries had mostly been oriented toward the Americas.

Prospective Direction

The arts component encompasses not only advancement of Castilian, with an expanded presence of the language promotion body, but also initiatives to support the transfer of scholarly educators and scholars.

Defense collaboration, measures regarding environmental shifts, gender equality and an expanded diplomatic presence are predictable aspects in today's environment.

However, the approach also lays very public stress it places on supporting democratic ideas, the pan-African body and, in specific, the West African regional organization the West African economic bloc.

This constitutes welcome public encouragement for the organization, which is now experiencing substantial difficulties after witnessing its half-century celebration spoiled by the walk-out of the desert region countries – the West African nation, the Malian Republic and the Sahel territory – whose controlling military regimes have refused to comply with its agreement regarding democratic governance and good governance.

Concurrently, in a statement aimed similarly at Spain's internal population as its African collaborators, the foreign ministry said "helping persons of African origin and the fight against racism and xenophobia are also crucial objectives".

Fine words of course are only a initial phase. But in today's sour international climate such language really does distinguish itself.