Spain and the New Mediterranean: Overlapping Crises

Spain’s Mediterranean policy was struggling to adapt to the combined impacts of the debt crisis in the eurozone and the Arab Spring. Spain’s traditional and uncontested commitment to multilateralism and region-building in the Mediterranean and the 'special' relationship with Morocco — Spain’s own 3M, Mediterranean, Multilateralism, and Morocco — were not in question, but the priorities and strategy were being revised as a result of four combined drivers for change. Two of them were domestic: the victory of the Popular Party in the 2011 elections and the effects of the economic crisis. The other two were regional: a democratic opening following the Arab Spring and the proliferation of security threats in Spain’s indirect vicinity, particularly in the Sahel.