The Diplomat
Morocco has already set the announced High Level Meeting (HLM) with Spain for the beginning of 2023 and not before the end of this year, as it had agreed with the Spanish authorities on 7 April, in the joint declaration signed after the visit of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to Rabat.
It was the Moroccan Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita, who, on Tuesday afternoon, announced that the summit will not take place “before the end of this year”, as stated in the aforementioned declaration, but rather at the beginning of 2023.
Hours earlier, the Spanish government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, had told journalists that the HLM was being prepared to take place “at the end of the year”.
Yesterday, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who accompanied the King and Queen on their visit to Germany, when asked by journalists about this delay, said that “the important thing is that this meeting, which has not been held since 2015, is going to be held“, and expressed his conviction that “it will mark a new milestone” in the “friendship” with Morocco.
Albares said that the two governments are “looking for a date”, which “has to be by common agreement” and explained that the agendas are very tight and that “we have to “find a time in the agenda that fits us, because it will mobilise many ministers”.
At the end of September, after holding a meeting with Bourita in New York, Albares said that both governments maintained their intention for the summit to be held before the end of 2022 and even, if possible, during the month of November.
The minister took the opportunity yesterday to stress that, in his statements, Bourita expressed Morocco’s “absolute will to comply with all the points” of the declaration.
Bourita, who was appearing at a joint press conference with the Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, visiting Rabat, assured that “all the working groups have been activated, with many elements in place, and all the commitments contained in the road map” established in the April declaration will be fulfilled.
With his words, Burita reaffirmed Rabat’s commitment to one of the key points for the Spanish government, the reopening of customs in Melilla, unilaterally closed by Morocco in 2018, and the opening of a new one in Ceuta, where it did not exist. Albares announced in September that the intention is for this to happen “throughout the month of January”, but given that it was thought that the RAN would take place before these openings took place, it is likely that these will also be delayed in the end.
These statements come days after it became known that Morocco had sent a letter to the UN Human Rights Council in which it stated that there were no land borders with Spain and described Melilla as an “occupied prison”.
Pressure from the Spanish government led a high-ranking official in the Moroccan Foreign Ministry to declare to the Efe news agency that such borders do exist. However, Spain sent a note verbale to the UN underlining that Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish.
