Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, held yesterday, finally, his long-awaited first bilateral meeting with his Moroccan counterpart, Naser Bourita, before whom he stressed the beginning of a “new stage” in relations in which “there is no room for unilateral acts or crises”.
Albares was received in Marrakech, a day before the celebration, in this same city, of the meeting of the Global Coalition against Daesh. The minister had not yet met Bourita since his arrival in office in July 2021, in the midst of a bilateral diplomatic crisis. Following the decision of the government of Pedro Sanchez to accept the autonomy plan for Western Sahara, and the consequent normalization of relations, the two ministers agreed on a first meeting in Rabat which was cancelled at the last minute and was replaced, on April 7, by an official meeting between the President of the Government and King Mohamed VI in Rabat to stage the new stage and launch the new roadmap.
José Manuel Albares accompanied Sánchez on this trip, but he did not have the opportunity to talk quietly with his Moroccan counterpart, with whom he has spoken on several occasions by telephone in recent months to try to put bilateral relations back on track. In any case, Albares and Bourita are set to play a key role in the coming months, as it will be up to them to coordinate the working groups that are scheduled to be set up in different sectors with a view to holding before the end of the year the postponed High Level Meeting (HLM), initially scheduled for December 2020.
“On April 7 in Rabat, Spain and Morocco set a roadmap that has already covered the first stages and, in the first stretches of its journey, we can already note a great harmony between the two countries on issues that affect our relationship,” Albares told the media yesterday after his meeting with the head of Moroccan diplomacy. “In this first bilateral meeting, we have taken stock of the development so far of that roadmap and we have agreed to raise and further deepen our bilateral relationship,” he continued. Likewise, he added, “we have talked about the High Level Meeting, which has to be held before the end of the year, a meeting that will mark a qualitative leap in our bilateral relationship, and for that our teams will work from now on.”
In the conversation, the two ministers agreed to go ahead with “all the meetings planned” in the roadmap “on economic issues, interconnections, education, vocational training and higher education, culture, research and sports, on delimitation of maritime spaces on the Atlantic coast, in the month of June, and also on airspace management, in the same month.” “Our economic relations, trade and investment between the two countries continue to grow and this new stage will boost them even more,” Albares stressed. “Morocco has already become a major market for Spain outside the EU, 800 Spanish companies are established in this country and we are Morocco’s first customer and first supplier,” he continued.
“The relaunching of migratory cooperation is another of the first fruits of this new stage,” Albares declared. “We have noted a sensitive decrease in the arrival of irregular immigrants to the Canary Islands and to the peninsula, and I would like here to acknowledge the extraordinary task of the security forces of both countries,” he continued. “If we compare the figures of January and February of this year with those of March and April, irregular arrivals of immigrants to the Canary Islands have fallen by 70%,” he added.
“We highlight, once again, and here I believe that the meeting of the Coalition against Daesh highlights it, our common commitment in the fight against terrorism and against jihadism, so present in our Mediterranean and Sahelian region,” said the minister. “In this, as in the areas of cooperation in the fight against human trafficking and against organized crime, concertation and dialogue between Spain and Morocco guarantee our security and our shared prosperity, and we now seek to make this cooperation perennial and systematic in all areas of our relationship,” because “we agree that unilateral acts and crises have no place in this new stage,” he said.
Ceuta and Melilla customs and the Western Sahara issue
According to Albares, the two countries continue “to make progress in the normalization of the passage of people and goods through customs in Ceuta and Melilla, as stated in the joint declaration”, and are “in agreement on a commercial model based on regularity, transparency and international standards, because this will be to the benefit of both countries”. “We have also agreed to continue advancing in air and maritime interconnections according to bilateral and multilateral agreements” and, “in this whole process, we will take into account the mutual benefit of both countries from positions of mutual respect, and I will especially take into account the autonomous communities and autonomous cities of Spain,” he added.
With regard to Western Sahara, the minister wished to “reiterate the terms of our joint declaration of April 7, considering the Moroccan proposal for autonomy as the most serious, credible and realistic basis for reaching a mutually acceptable solution within the framework of the United Nations and to convey our support to the special envoy of the UN Secretary General, Staffan de Mistura”.
