Spain wants NATO to invite the Southern Neighborhood to a ministerial meeting before 2025

BRUSSELS Oct. 12 () –

Spain wants NATO to invite the countries of the Southern Neighborhood to a meeting of allied foreign ministers before 2025, following the example of the Asia Pacific countries that have become regular participants in NATO summits.

The objective is that partner countries of the military bloc and framed in the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative that brings together Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia can attend the Foreign Affairs meeting in December, explain allied sources.

From this list of countries, efforts would be made to ensure that at least a few could be invited, since within the group of Mediterranean countries there are also differences in their degree of relationship with NATO, with Jordan and Mauritania at the forefront in their dealings with the military organization.

In this way, Madrid wants to encourage the dialogue promoted in recent years with partners outside NATO to also accelerate in the case of the Mediterranean neighbors, one of the objectives also set by the new Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte. , and that fits with the new strategy for the Southern Neighborhood agreed at the Washington summit.

Until now the partnership system with third countries has been developed especially with the countries of the Asia-Pacific area. This is Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, countries that have participated in the latest leaders’ summits and are invited to ministerial meetings.

This responds to Washington’s growing interest in a region marked by the military rise of China, which NATO does not consider a threat but does observe with some suspicion. At his last summit he already referred to Beijing as a challenge to his security, especially for facilitating Russian aggression in Ukraine.

That is why Spain now aspires to replicate this scheme to redouble the political dialogue with its Mediterranean neighbors but also with regional organizations such as the African Union, the Arab League or the Gulf Cooperation Council to have greater cooperation in a region. with security threats for the Euro-Atlantic area and where Moscow is increasingly gaining influence.

To advance this objective, Spain hopes to have as an ally the special representative of the Alliance for the Southern Neighborhood, a new position for which NATO has appointed the Spanish diplomat Javier Colomina.

In mid-September, Colomina already had a first meeting at NATO headquarters with representatives of the allies in which her intention to increase political contact with the countries of the Mediterranean initiative was clear.