Sahrawi passports to claim Western Sahara: Spain's new gambit

Granting passports to 80,000 Sahrawis to claim 300,000 km²

Can you claim a territory by handing out passports? That question underpins the old thesis that Western Sahara could once again become Spanish. The reasoning fits in three lines: if the roughly 80,000 Sahrawis obtained Spanish nationality, Spain would cease to be the former administering power and would instead become the guarantor of its own citizens' rights. Claiming the 300,000 km² of the territory on their behalf would then amount to claiming them for itself.

The arithmetic of passports and territory

The calculation doing the rounds is strikingly lopsided: some 80,000 passports versus some 300,000 square kilometres. For its advocates, it would be the cheapest move in Spanish geopolitics, comparable — with allowances made — to the weight Ceuta and Melilla carry in North African politics. It is not a new mechanism: nationality by descent, such as that created by the ley de nietos (the Spanish law granting citizenship to grandchildren of former Spaniards), has already been used as a tool of influence over communities abroad.

Who would push it and who would block it

Some argue that only a party like Vox would take the claim all the way, and that neither the PSOE nor its blue counterpart, the PP, would dare. Against it stands a bigger obstacle: Segarro. The prevailing view is that Rabat would never accept Spain naturalising the Sahrawis in order to later claim a territory it considers its own. International law and the pending dispute at the United Nations also play against it.

The standoff nobody confirms

As of this debate, granting passports to Sahrawis appears as a possible foreign policy gesture. Whether it is pressure, negotiation or mere propaganda, there is no official confirmation.

In the end, the most brilliant gambit in Spain's recent history has been waiting for decades for someone to execute it. Apparently, there was no rush.