Spain’s main opposition party, the Partido Popular (PP), is relentlessly stoking anti-Moroccan sentiment as it maneuvers toward government, with Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares openly branding the party “anti-Moroccan” amid an escalating row over its stance toward Rabat.
The charge, unusually blunt for Spanish diplomacy, exposes a contradiction PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo would have to reckon with if he reaches the Moncloa.
Since 2022, Spain and Morocco have built a strategic partnership spanning migration, security, trade, and the joint 2030 World Cup bid.
Yet the PP has spent that same period turning Morocco into a domestic political weapon. While Pedro Sánchez’s government backs Morocco’s autonomy plan as the “most serious, credible and realistic” basis for resolving the Sahara dispute, PP leaders have refused to endorse that formula, hiding behind vague references.
The party’s opportunism became harder to disguise in July 2025, when a self-styled Polisario representative was welcomed at the PP’s national congress, and again in February 2026, when Albares accused the party of running a double discourse by stirring anti-Moroccan rhetoric at home while quietly sending “emissaries” to reassure Rabat behind closed doors.
