Iberian Pact

The treaty was conceived in the final months of the Spanish Civil War. Portugal had provided support for the rebel Nationalist government of Burgos throughout the war, provided diplomatic support in the League of Nations and allowed 18,000 volunteers from Portugal to join the rebel army. Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar saw Francisco Franco as a kindred spirit, with both leaders being autocratic and against the socialist Republican Spain. Salazar also sought to make his country less reliant on the United Kingdom and so the Iberian Pact was one of many treaties signed between Portugal and foreign powers, including Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, as a means of expanding Portuguese influence. Finally, Portugal was concerned with Spanish, whether Republican or Nationalist, ambitions to attack Portugal or the British-held Gibraltar.[3][4]

Spain's motivation was its desire to remain neutral in what it saw was an inevitable future war between the United Kingdom and Germany, and it hoped that a treaty would detach Portugal from British influence. Spain was willing to expel its foreign volunteers to guarantee that neutrality.[3][5]

On 16 September 1938, in the background of the Munich Crisis, Francoist Spain asked if Portugal would be willing to negotiate a treaty of reciprocal security. On the 19th, a non-aggression pact proposal was proposed, and on the 28th, a draft treaty was handed by Ambassador Nicolás Franco to the Portuguese government. After the end of the Catalonia Offensive, Salazar asked Luís Teixeira de Sampaio to write a broader and balanced draft treaty, which was proposed to the Spanish ambassador on 9 February 1939. That version became the treaty.[3]

• Article 1 stated that the parties respect each other's borders and territories and would not conduct acts of aggression against each other.
• Article 2 stated that the parties would not assist aggressors acting against each other.
• Article 3 stated that the parties would not enter pacts or alliances with other powers that would threaten each other.
• Article 4 stated that if a party entered a pact or alliance with another power, the articles of the treaty would be safeguarded.
• Article 5 set the treaty duration at ten years and outlined a process for extension at ten-year intervals.
• Article 6 stated that the treaty would not enter force until an exchange of ratifications had taken place.[3][6]

The Iberian Pact declared mutual respect for borders and territories and declared that assistance would be denied to aggressors to the signatory nations. The pact did not call into question previous alliances, such as the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, and established that future pacts or alliance would safeguard Iberian interests and neutrality in the event of a general European war. The pact was originally planned to last ten years, but Article 5 provided for extensions for additional ten-year periods.[7][3]

An additional protocol to the pact was signed on 29 July 1940,[6] following the fall of France, which reinforced the neutrality aspects of the treaty and required consultations and synchronisation of strategies to ensure common interests were protected. In December 1942, as the outcome of the war seemed to have turned to favour the Allies, Spanish Foreign Minister Francisco Gómez-Jordana Sousa announced the Iberian Bloc, seeking to maintain the neutrality of Spain and Portugal.[8] Throughout the Second World War, the pact was a significant factor in allowing Spain to withstand pressure from Germany to join the Axis powers, and it allowed Portugal more freedom with regard to its alliance with Britain.[9][10]

On 20 September 1948, the pact was renewed and expanded[6] in a move that was seen as a victory for Spanish diplomacy as it showed that Spain was not alone in the postwar era, and that Portuguese membership in NATO, which was then being negotiated, did not render the pact moot.[9]

In 1958, the pact was expanded into a mutual defence treaty.[11]

The pact was expanded and renewed in 1970.[12] In March 1975, after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, António de Spínola attempted to invoke the pact to demand Spanish intervention. This was rejected by Franco.[13]

The Iberian Pact was replaced in 1977 by the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and Portugal after both countries had transitioned into democracies.[14]

• Hayes, Carlton J.H. (1945). Wartime mission in Spain, 1942–1945. Macmillan Company 1st Edition. ISBN 978-1121497245.
• Hoare, Samuel (1946). Ambassador on Special Mission. Collins; First Edition. pp. 124, 125.
• Kay, Hugh (1970). Salazar and Modern Portugal. New York: Hawthorn Books.

• Portugal in World War II
• Spain in World War II
• Pedro Teotónio Pereira
• Portugal–Spain relations