YOU WANT THAT COLD, WE PRESUME?:

Spanish overtures rebuffed in Washington (Leslie Crawford, November 10 2004, Financial Times)

Relations between the US and Spain's Socialist government hit a new low this week when President George W. Bush invited José María Aznar, Spain's former prime minister, to the White House for a private, 40-minute chat.

In a pointed snub to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who succeeded Mr Aznar and who incurred the wrath of the US by withdrawing Spanish troops from Iraq, President Bush has not yet returned Mr Zapatero's courtesy call last week to congratulate him on his re-election victory.

By contrast, Mr Bush has found time to return the calls of other European leaders, as well as leaders in developing countries, according to a list published in ABC, a conservative Spanish daily.

The frostly state of bilateral relations is already affecting Spain, particularly in the field of defence.

Mr Aznar, an unconditional ally of the US president, had entertained hopes that the US would transfer the centre of operations of the US Sixth Fleet from Naples to Rota, a naval base on Spain's Atlantic coast. As a first step, the US Navy had agreed to give more maintenance work to Izar, Spain's bankrupt, state-owned shipyards.

Spanish defence analysts say the Sixth Fleet maintenance contracts have now been put on ice.

“This was to be the salvation of Izar. Thousands of jobs were at stake,” said one analyst at the Real Instituto Elcano, Spain's leading foreign policy think-tank. “The Americans won't leave Rota, it is still important for them to have a naval base at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, but we are no longer regarded as a strategic ally, and this is a disaster for Spain."

Defence analysts also see the hand of the US administration in reports that Israel has cancelled contracts for Spanish frigates, which would have been built by Izar.

But the most worrying aspect of the fall-out between Mr Zapatero and Mr Bush, according to the Real Instituto Elcano experts, is that the Spanish government will no longer be able to count on Washington's restraining influence on Morocco's claims to Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves in north Africa. Socialist old-timers bemoan Mr Zapatero's inability to patch up relations with the Bush administration.