Ceuta and Melilla: What If Sovereignty Changed Without Spaniards Having to Leave?
The real future of these two cities may be less about a battle of flags and more about building a shared economic space between Morocco, Spain and Europe. Whenever Ceuta and Melilla are discussed, the debate almost always falls into the same trap. For Madrid, they are Spanish. For Rabat, they are the last territories under foreign sovereignty on Morocco’s northern coast. And immediately, the collective imagination turns the issue into a geopolitical board game: if one country “wins” the cities, the other must necessarily “lose” them. But in the 21st century, is that really the only way to think about a border inherited from centuries of history? There is another possibility, far less spectacular but perhaps far more intelligent: that sovereignty could one day evolve toward Morocco, without forcing the Spanish population to leave, without breaking economic ties with Spain, and without brutally changing the daily lives of the people who live there. In other words: changing th...
