section_path: Politics/Foreign relations
section_name: Foreign relations
paragraph_text: Foreign relations
  
  After the return of democracy following the death of Franco in 1975, Spain's foreign policy priorities were to break out of the diplomatic isolation of the Franco years and expand diplomatic relations, enter the European Community, and define security relations with the West.
  
  As a member of NATO since 1982, Spain has established itself as a participant in multilateral international security activities. Spain's EU membership represents an important part of its foreign policy. Even on many international issues beyond western Europe, Spain prefers to coordinate its efforts with its EU partners through the European political co-operation mechanisms.
  
  Spain has maintained its special relations with Hispanic America and the Philippines. Its policy emphasises the concept of an Ibero-American community, essentially the renewal of the concept of " Hispanidad " or " Hispanismo ", as it is often referred to in English, which has sought to link the Iberian Peninsula with Hispanic America through language, commerce, history and culture. It is fundamentally "based on shared values and the recovery of democracy."
  
  The country is involved in a number of territorial disputes. Spain claims Gibraltar, an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, in the southernmost part of the Iberian Peninsula. Another dispute surrounds the Savage Islands; Spain claims that they are rocks rather than islands, and therefore does not accept the Portuguese Exclusive Economic Zone (200 nautical miles) generated by the islands. Spain claims sovereignty over the Perejil Island, a small, uninhabited rocky islet located in the South shore of the Strait of Gibraltar; it was the subject of an armed incident between Spain and Morocco in 2002. Morocco claims the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the plazas de soberanía islets off the northern coast of Africa. Portugal does not recognise Spain's sovereignty over the territory of Olivenza.