Spain approves nationality for up to 200,000 Sahrawis and descendants

Madrid, 10 Sep 2026 – The Spanish parliament today approved access to Spanish nationality for those born in the Western Sahara until 1977 and descendants, after a year and a half of debate and a change of position of the socialists, led by Pedro Sánchez.

The PSOE, which is at the head of the Spanish Government, today voted in favour of this law in the final vote in plenary, after having voted against in the first general opinion in February 2025.

In the special debate (in committee) of more than a year, and after some changes in the proposal, the PSOE eventually changed the vote and today it was one of the parties that supported the law.

The People's Party (PP, right) and the Independentist Together for Catalonia (JxCat, conservative) abstained, the Vox (extreme right) voted against and the other parties voted in favour.

The initiative was from Somar, the left-wing platform that is in the government coalition with the socialists, and was approved at a time when Spanish current is marked by the illegal entry of more than 70,000 people in Ceuta on 30 and 31 July and relations with Morocco.

The last vote in the specialty, which determined that the law would proceed to final validation by the plenary of the deputies, took place on July 23, a few days before this mass entry into Ceuta, Spanish autonomous city in North Africa bordering Morocco.

The remaining parties have accused PSOE and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of subservience to Morocco in the Ceuta crisis and most Spaniards, according to various polls, consider that Rabat was behind what happened in the Spanish enclave.

The Western Sahara had Spanish administration until February 1976, when, following a military occupation in Morocco, Spain informed the United Nations that it had ceased its presence in the territory.

Between 1958 and 1976, the territory had the same status as a Spanish province, on an equal footing with the remaining 52 that still exist in Spain, a strategy of the then dictatorship of Francisco Franco to circumvent the demands of decolonization of the UN.

During the period when the Western Sahara was the 53rd province of Spain, those born in the territory had Spanish identity cards and accessed the Civil Service or Armed Forces.

In August 1976, Spain recognized the right to nationality of those born in the Western Sahara until February of that year and gave a year, until September 29, 1977, to submit applications.

“ But the Spanish administration had already left the territory, thus making it impossible to exercise this option effectively, as the Supreme Court stated in sentences of 1998 and 1999, reads in the text of the Somar initiative.

The law adopted today also recognizes the right to Spanish nationality for children born in Western Sahara until September 29, 1977.

On the other hand, the Sahrawis will need only two years of residence in Spain in order to also have access to nationality, and the same extraordinary regime that already exists for citizens of the countries of the Iberian American community (including Portugal and Andorra), Equatorial Guinea and the Philippines (also former Spanish colonies) and descendants of Sephardites will apply to them.

The parties that supported the law today considered this to be a matter of justice and “historical repair” in relation to the Sahrawi people, who thus see “the replacement of a right” that was recognized to them half a century ago but could never exercise.

Despite the change of position, the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez again today heard criticism from the other benches because of the policy in relation to Morocco, reminding the “criminal letter”, without warning to the parliament, which the Prime Minister sent to King Mohamed VI in 2022, after a year of diplomatic crisis, to support Rabat’s proposal for the Western Sahara to be an autonomous Moroccan region.

That letter was a change from the historical position of Spain to defend a referendum of self-determination in the Western Sahara.

The Member of the Somar Teslem Andaia Ubbi, born in a Sahrawi refugee camp in Algeria, recalled at the start of the debate on the initiative, in February 2025, her own case, which included the requirement of at least ten years of certified and continued residence in Spain for access to nationality, when five are required to have refugee status.

She also stressed the “legal limbo” in which thousands of Sahrawis live displaced to the refugee camps in Algeria or already born there, the majority without internationally recognised documents certifying their nationality.

According to estimates by the authors of the initiative, between 100,000 and 200,000 people should be entitled to Spanish nationality under this law, between residents in the current territory of the Western Sahara and people living in the Sahrawi camps in Algeria.

Before it enters into force, the law will still have to go through the Senate (high chamber of the Spanish Courts), which does not have veto power of initiatives approved by Congress of Deputies (low chamber of parliament).