Yesterday, September 10, 2026, Spain’s Parliament placed a consequential question on the table in its relations with Morocco. The Congress of Deputies voted in favor of a bill granting Spanish nationality to Sahrawis born in Western Sahara during the period of Spanish administration, before September 29, 1977, while also opening, under specific conditions, the possibility for their direct children to obtain it. The proposal received 168 votes in favor, 31 against and 145 abstentions. The procedure is not yet complete: the text must still go before the Senate. It would therefore be premature to describe it as a law already in force.
The most important element may be found inside the text itself.
The Spanish Parliament does not present the initiative simply as a temporary maneuver directed against Morocco. Nor does the text explicitly describe it as an instrument directly connected to the Western Sahara dispute. The official reasoning is more elaborate. Spain recalls that Western Sahara was under Spanish administration, that its inhabitants held Spanish documents, attended Spanish institutions and had an administrative and legal status within what Madrid then regarded as the “Provincia del Sahara.” The proposal argues that Spain should respond to what it describes as a historical relationship between Spain and the Sahrawi population and reinforce those links through a specific legal mechanism.
That particular argument is what allows the discussion to move beyond the immediate issue.
If a colonial past and a former administration of a territory can, fifty years later, become the basis for a procedure granting access to the nationality of the state that once administered it, and if language, history, education, documentation and social ties can, according to the logic advanced by Spain’s Parliament, establish a “historical connection” deserving a legal response, Morocco is entitled to ask a simple question: is this an exclusively Spanish principle when the Sahara is concerned, or can it be treated as a broader principle when the geography changes?
That is where Catalonia enters the story.
Today, September 11, Catalonia celebrates its national day, “La Diada.” The date refers to the fall of Barcelona in 1714, after a long siege during the War of the Spanish Succession. Over time, September 11 became a symbol of Catalan identity and then one of the most important dates for the independence movement. In 1980, it officially became Catalonia’s national day.
But this is not simply historical folklore.
On October 1, 2017, Catalan authorities held an independence referendum despite its suspension by Spain’s Constitutional Court. The Catalan government announced that 90.18 percent of votes cast favored independence, with turnout at 43.03 percent according to its own figures. Madrid considered the vote unconstitutional, and police intervened to close polling stations. The Catalan Parliament subsequently declared independence before the Spanish government invoked Article 155 of the Constitution.
Catalonia had gone even further in the legal construction of its political project.
The 2017 Law on the Legal and Foundational Transition to the Catalan Republic included provisions for Catalan nationality, defined who could acquire it and contemplated the possibility of retaining another nationality. The law was later annulled following the failure of the independence process, but its existence demonstrated that the idea of a Catalan nationality was not merely rhetorical. It formed part of the institutional project being pursued by the independence forces.
Nearly nine years later, independence remains part of Catalan political life, even though the political landscape is very different from that of 2017. The questions of self-determination, amnesty for the leaders of the “procés” and the future relationship between Barcelona and Madrid continue to return to both institutions and the streets.
Then comes Spanish nationality for Sahrawis.
Morocco does not need to pretend that Catalonia is an independent state, because it is not. Nor does it need to recognize any Catalan separatist project in order to raise the issue. The question is simpler — and potentially more uncomfortable for Madrid: if historical links with Spain, created during its administration of Western Sahara, can justify a special nationality regime, what prevents Morocco from considering, according to its own criteria, a comparable approach toward people belonging to a European community that also has a long history and longstanding links with Morocco?
Spain could answer that the two situations are legally different.
That would be partly true. It should be acknowledged if the discussion is to remain journalistically serious.
The Sahrawis targeted by the Spanish proposal lived in a territory actually administered by Spain, and Spanish authorities issued them Spanish documents. That is one of the direct legal foundations of the proposal. The Spanish Parliament also identifies specific forms of evidence: Spanish identity documents, birth certificates, administrative records, school records, health or pension documents and other material capable of proving birth in Western Sahara during the relevant period.
But that legal distinction does not eliminate the political dimension.
Spain’s Parliament has chosen to reopen, almost half a century after the end of Spanish administration in Western Sahara, a question involving a historical relationship with populations that it still considers connected to its own past. The proposal also recalls that Spain has previously used nationality as a means of rebuilding historical ties with other communities, notably through the 2015 law concerning Sephardic Jews of Spanish origin.
If nationality can become, in foreign policy and legislation, an instrument for reconnecting the past with the present, Morocco can also consider using that instrument — but according to an independent Moroccan conception.
That does not necessarily mean issuing a decree tomorrow granting Moroccan nationality to every person in Catalonia who carries an independence flag.
It means studying, politically and legally, whether a special pathway to Moroccan nationality could be created for people of Moroccan origin, or for individuals who can demonstrate exceptional historical, cultural or other ties with Morocco, provided such a measure is based on objective criteria and genuinely serves Morocco’s interests.
Catalonia provides a political and historical setting that makes the argument particularly clear. There is a community with its own identity, language and political memory; an independence movement that has confronted the Spanish constitutional order; and a regional Parliament that, in 2017, attempted to establish the rules for the nationality of a future independent Catalan state.
And now, on the very day Catalonia celebrates its national day, Spain is bringing back to the forefront the concept of nationality based on a historical relationship with a territory once administered by Spain.
Does that mean Morocco should collectively grant citizenship to Catalans?
No.
Does it mean Catalans constitute a legally identical case to Sahrawis who lived under Spanish administration?
No, again.
But the political question created by Madrid deserves to be asked: if Spanish history can serve as the basis for an exceptional nationality mechanism in the Sahara, why should Morocco not be able to study, according to its own sovereign criteria, the granting of Moroccan nationality to people who have particular historical, cultural or other significant ties with Morocco?
And the discussion should not necessarily end with Catalonia.
There is a broader question surrounding colonial memory itself. Spain has now chosen to make its history in Western Sahara the basis of new legislation. Morocco, if it wants to turn this moment into policy rather than simply reaction, could open a wider file: how do states use nationality to restore historical links? At what point does nationality become a legal right? At what point does it become an instrument of influence? And where is the line between sovereignty and political calculation?
Spanish law itself demonstrates that nationality can be used, under exceptional circumstances, to rebuild relationships with communities outside Spain’s territory.
Morocco does not need to copy the Spanish mechanism in order to respond to its logic. It can construct its own approach and make clear that nationality is neither a political reward nor a political punishment, but a legal and sovereign relationship defined by the state according to its laws and interests.
As for Catalonia, it offers political and historical material that allows the question to be posed without artificiality. There is a distinct Catalan identity, a specific political history, an independence movement that confronted Spain’s constitutional order, and an institutional project that even attempted to define a future Catalan nationality.
On the day Spain chooses to reactivate, through legislation, the relationship between its nationality and a former territorial administration, Morocco is entirely entitled to examine that logic carefully.
The calmest — and perhaps the most intelligent — response does not necessarily have to be a protest addressed to Madrid. It can take the form of a legal and political question that goes beyond the immediate dispute:
If Spanish history can produce rights to Spanish nationality in Western Sahara, what can Moroccan history produce in terms of rights, relationships and nationality?
In politics, not every answer takes the form of a decree published the following day. Sometimes the real response begins when the other side is required to explain, all the way through, the logic it has itself introduced into the debate.
