Eduardo González
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday summoned the Chargé d’Affaires of the Moroccan Embassy in Madrid following Rabat’s decision to keep air traffic with Spain closed because of “non-compliance with health protocols against COVID-19”, a measure that, in the opinion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, “is not acceptable because it does not respond to reality”.
Barely a week after Albares assured before the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Senate that the diplomatic crisis with Morocco was “behind us”, Rabat has once again heated up the atmosphere with Madrid, in this case due to the alleged non-compliance by Spain of the sanitary protocols against COVID-19 in the airports.
After closing the borders last November 29 to stop the spread of the new omicron variant, Rabat has chartered several flights of the Royal Air Maroc airline from Portugal, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to repatriate its citizens. In this regard, the Moroccan Ministry of Health and Social Protection warned this past Monday in a statement that its nationals should return from Portugal, and not from Spain, because our country represents a “threat” to the health of Morocco for “the lack of compliance with health protocols against COVID-19”.
“After observing the travel procedures, it was found that the competent Spanish authorities do not carry out the due and strict control of the health status of passengers at the time of boarding at their airports” nor adequately comply with the “required control of vaccination certificates”, which is why at least 19 positive cases of coronavirus have been detected from Spain, both on arrival and during transit, the communiqué continued.
“The communiqué is not acceptable to Spain because it does not respond to reality,” Albares stated yesterday during a joint press conference with his Luxembourg counterpart, Jean Asselborn, at the Palacio de Viana in Madrid. “Spain complies with all the most demanding international requirements to maintain the fight against COVID,” he continued. “The Spanish government is acting relentlessly in the face of the pandemic” and the cumulative incidence in the last 14 days in Spain “is much lower than that of the countries around us,” he added.
Therefore, the statement from Morocco “is not acceptable because it has no objective basis, and so I’m going to move it to Morocco,” he continued. “We are in contact with our Embassy and talking with the Moroccan Embassy in Spain,” the minister added. According to diplomatic sources told The Diplomat, Foreign Affairs yesterday summoned the Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy in Madrid, Farid Aoulouhaj, by order of Albares, to convey its protest against the communiqué. The Chargé d’Affaires has been in charge of the Embassy since last May, when the ambassador, Karima Benyaich, was called for consultations by Rabat in the middle of the diplomatic crisis following the entry into Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali.
