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Madrid is adopting a distinctly different path from several European countries when it comes to movement regulations and relations toward the African mainland.

While countries like the USA, Britain, French Republic and Germany are slashing their development aid budgets, Spain continues dedicated to increasing its engagement, though from a reduced baseline.

Current Programs

Recently, the Madrid has been accommodating an continent-endorsed "global summit on individuals with African heritage". The Madrid African conference will explore corrective fairness and the establishment of a new development fund.

This represents the newest evidence of how Spain's socialist-led government is working to enhance and broaden its involvement with the mainland that rests only a few kilometres to the southern direction, across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Strategic Framework

This past summer Foreign Minister the Spanish diplomat established a fresh consultative body of renowned scholarly, foreign service and arts representatives, over 50 percent of them of African origin, to supervise the execution of the thorough Spanish-African initiative that his administration unveiled at the close of the prior year.

Additional diplomatic missions in sub-Saharan regions, and partnerships in business and academic are scheduled.

Migration Management

The distinction between Spain's approach and that of other Western nations is not just in funding but in attitude and philosophy – and nowhere more so than in handling migration.

Comparable with other European locations, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is seeking methods to contain the arrival of irregular arrivals.

"In our view, the movement dynamic is not only a matter of ethical standards, unity and honor, but also one of rationality," the government leader said.

More than 45,000 people undertook the dangerous ocean journey from Africa's west coast to the overseas region of the Atlantic islands the previous year. Estimates of those who perished while trying the crossing range between 1,400 to a staggering 10,460.

Workable Approaches

Madrid's government has to accommodate fresh migrants, review their cases and handle their incorporation into larger population, whether transient or more enduring.

However, in terminology distinctly separate from the hostile messaging that emanates from numerous EU governments, the Sanchez government publicly recognizes the hard economic realities on the ground in West Africa that compel individuals to jeopardize their safety in the attempt to attain EU territory.

Furthermore, it attempts to transcend simply refusing entry to recent entrants. Rather, it is designing original solutions, with a promise to foster human mobility that are secure, organized and routine and "jointly profitable".

Commercial Cooperation

On his trip to Mauritania recently, Sanchez highlighted the participation that foreign workers contribute to the Iberian economic system.

Spain's leadership supports skill development initiatives for youth without work in countries such as Senegal, notably for unauthorized persons who have been returned, to support them in establishing workable employment options in their homeland.

Furthermore, it increased a "circular migration" scheme that offers individuals from West Africa short-term visas to arrive in the Iberian nation for defined timeframes of seasonal work, mainly in agriculture, and then return.

Geopolitical Relevance

The basic concept supporting the Spanish approach is that the Iberian nation, as the continental nation nearest to the continent, has an essential self interest in the continent's advancement toward comprehensive and lasting growth, and peace and security.

The core justification might seem apparent.

Nevertheless previous eras had guided the Spanish nation down a quite different path.

Apart from a few Maghreb footholds and a small tropical outpost – currently sovereign Equatorial Guinea – its colonial expansion in the 16th and 17th Centuries had mainly been directed toward the Americas.

Future Outlook

The cultural dimension incorporates not only dissemination of the national tongue, with an expanded presence of the language promotion body, but also schemes to help the transfer of educational instructors and scholars.

Protection partnership, initiatives concerning global warming, female advancement and an expanded diplomatic presence are predictable aspects in the current climate.

However, the plan also lays very public stress it places on backing democratic principles, the pan-African body and, in specific, the sub-Saharan cooperative body the West African economic bloc.

This will be positive official support for the entity, which is currently under severe pressure after observing its five-decade milestone marred by the withdrawal of the Sahel nations – Burkina Faso, the West African state and the Sahel territory – whose controlling military regimes have chosen not to follow with its standard for political freedom and proper administration.

Meanwhile, in a communication aimed similarly at Madrid's domestic audience as its continental allies, the international relations office declared "assisting the African community abroad and the battle against prejudice and xenophobia are also crucial objectives".

Eloquent statements of course are only a beginning stage. But in today's sour international climate such language really does stand out.