How did 72,000 people cross into Ceuta?

Just for a little bit of political background, where do the last few days fall in the history of tensions, say, between Madrid and Rabat?

The Spanish relationship with Morocco is a difficult one.

It's always this difficult balancing act.

Spain depends on Morocco for border control, for, you know... controlling sort of border flows, both to the Canaries, to mainland Spain, and then in respect to these two enclaves.

And that gives Morocco huge leverage in terms of negotiations.

One member of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist Party told me Morocco is Spain's Achilles heel when it comes to national security.

You have this huge leverage, but at the same time, Spain also has to balance out with their relationship with Algeria, Morocco's chief regional rival.

Morocco has the question of migration, whereas Algeria is Spain's main gas supplier.

And you always have this tension, these twin dependencies that Spain have to try and balance between.

And I think over a 40-year period, they more or less managed it.

And interestingly, it's become much more difficult since 2020 and the Donald Trump-Abraham Accords.

The Abraham Accords changed the status quo around the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

This huge, sparsely populated territory in West Africa the size of Britain.

You have this sort of dispute between Algeria and Morocco over sovereignty.

Algeria backs independence for Western Sahara via the Polisario Front, whereas Morocco maintains a 50-year occupation of this territory.

And the international consensus and status quo since at least the 1990s with the peace accord there, was one of neutrality.

That European powers, Western powers did not get involved.

They backed a UN-mandated peace agreement.

That sort of collapsed with the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2020.

And since then, Spain have found it much more difficult to balance the relationship between these two North African countries on which they depend.

Just for a little bit of political background, where do the last few days fall in the history of tensions, say, between Madrid and Rabat?

The Spanish relationship with Morocco is a difficult one.

It's always this difficult balancing act.

Spain depends on Morocco for border control, for, you know... controlling sort of border flows, both to the Canaries, to mainland Spain, and then in respect to these two enclaves.

And that gives Morocco huge leverage in terms of negotiations.

One member of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialist Party told me Morocco is Spain's Achilles heel when it comes to national security.

You have this huge leverage, but at the same time, Spain also has to balance out with their relationship with Algeria, Morocco's chief regional rival.

Morocco has the question of migration, whereas Algeria is Spain's main gas supplier.

And you always have this tension, these twin dependencies that Spain have to try and balance between.

And I think over a 40-year period, they more or less managed it.

And interestingly, it's become much more difficult since 2020 and the Donald Trump-Abraham Accords.

The Abraham Accords changed the status quo around the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

This huge, sparsely populated territory in West Africa the size of Britain.

You have this sort of dispute between Algeria and Morocco over sovereignty.

Algeria backs independence for Western Sahara via the Polisario Front, whereas Morocco maintains a 50-year occupation of this territory.

And the international consensus and status quo since at least the 1990s with the peace accord there, was one of neutrality.

That European powers, Western powers did not get involved.

They backed a UN-mandated peace agreement.

That sort of collapsed with the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2020.

And since then, Spain have found it much more difficult to balance the relationship between these two North African countries on which they depend.