Considerations on the meeting at Barajas (1936): A lost chance for the Spanish-Moroccan relations

Abstract

Some scholars consider the meeting between Franco and Hassan II at Barajas airport in July 1963 as a turning point in the evolution of the Spanish-Moroccan dispute over Spanish controlled territories in North Africa. Nonetheless, since the content of that meeting was kept secret, we can find still different interpretations and misunderstandings about it. Based on newly available diplomatic documentation, this paper reexamines the factors that led to that meeting in order to shed new light on this historical episode. It describes the Moroccan internal political situation, the challenge represented by Algeria at the time, and the ideological and strategic concept of King Hassan II, which was clearly set out in his negotiation proposal to Spain. After analyzing this, two conclusions are reached. The first one is that this meeting was fruitless, as it did not produce any agreement to solve the territorial disputes between Spain and Morocco. The second one argues that the foreign policy of the Spanish government at the time was shortsighted, because it ignored the decolonization process taking place then at a global scale and did not adopt a realistic stance that could have allowed for securing its interests in North Africa.