The Spanish State leaves Canary Islands waters at the mercy of Moroccan maritime legislation

Aguas Canarias

PRESS RELEASE – Platform for the Canary Islands

The Government of Spain has replied to the question put by Meri Pita, Member of the Canary Islands’ Parliament, under entry number 242240, dated 8 November. When does the Spanish Government intend to comply with the Maritime Convention Treaty and define the Canary Islands as an archipelago of state, bearing in mind that there is no incompatibility between this definition and the Spanish Constitution?

On 24 October last, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Constitutional Affairs, registration number 240028, certified that Part IV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea tells us that: “for the purposes of this Convention;

Archipelagic State is understood as defined in article 46.a”.

Archipelago” means a group of islands, their connecting waters and other natural features, which are so closely interconnected that such islands, waters and natural features form an intrinsic geographical, economic and political entity or have historically been regarded as such.

The aforementioned Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs answered Meri Pita’s question in a simple and ambiguous manner, wanting to resolve it with the following argument: the Government always complies with the obligations arising from international treaties signed by Spain. It is not true that the Government always complies, not with regard to the revision of stipulations that are contrary to the International Treaty of the Sea, (art. 95.1) and the repeal of Spanish domestic laws before the approval of the new international maritime law. Spain has done absolutely nothing in this respect.

The Platform for the Canary Sea insists that Spain has recognised the Canary Islands as a group of islands, delimited from the straight baselines of each island (Royal Decree 2510/1978), from which the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone is measured (Law 15/1978).

By failing to repeal RD 2510 and Law 15/1978 and in violation of Article 95.1 of the Spanish Constitution. As a result, the Spanish State denies the Canary Islands the legal status of an archipelago, without establishing maritime borders with the African continent, leaving it at the mercy of Moroccan maritime legislation.

At the VII High Level Meeting held in Seville on 29 September 2005, Spain agreed with Morocco on an equidistant median with a “provisional” character, and in the future, when Morocco so agrees, the median will be by the “equitable” method. In this N.A.R. Spain had already planned to hand over to Morocco the Sahara and the maritime and air spaces of the Canary Islands.

Morocco has already decided in February 2020 to submit to the International Maritime Organisation the arrangement of the nautical coordinates defining its 200 maritime spaces in the Exclusive Economic Zone, pending the corresponding signature, which will take place at the next High Level Meeting. They say by the end of January or early February. The Plataforma por el Mar Canario doubts that it will be signed, after the non-acceptance at the United Nations of a Moroccan Statute of Autonomy for the territory of Western Sahara. A resounding failure by Zapatero and Mohamed VI.

Today the waters wrongly called “Canary Islands” are under Moroccan jurisdiction, they are not even Spanish, since the Spanish government has not presented the corresponding complaint to the International Court of Justice. First they handed over the Sahara to Morocco, then they also ceded to Morocco the waters around the Canaries (except to the West).

The Spanish governments have always defeated all the initiatives presented in the Spanish Parliament with the maritime definition of the Canary Islands as an archipelago. Today we are paying the consequences of Spain’s permanent neglect of the Canary Islands.

In the city of Valverde, island of El Hierro, 20 December 2022.

Signed: Domingo Martín Afonso
President of the Platform for the Canary Islands