The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured yesterday that “all the road map agreed with Morocco is being fulfilled”, but he did not want to confirm if the opening of the customs in Ceuta and Melilla will take place before the general elections of July 23.
“The entire roadmap agreed with Morocco is being fulfilled,” the minister stated during the press conference following the Council of Ministers meeting. According to Albares, in the last pilot test on the commercial passage at customs, carried out last May 26, “a few days before the calling” of the elections, there was for the first time the entry of goods from Morocco to Ceuta and Melilla.
Therefore, he assured, “steps are being taken” for the opening of customs, but it is “a complex mechanism, in which several things must be verified”. “Since 2018 there had not been in operation a customs in Melilla and never in history has there been a customs in Ceuta,” he recalled. “That takes us to several centuries without customs,” added the minister. The minister thus came out to the step of the information of the newspaper El País in which it is assured that Morocco is failing to comply with the agreed schedule and delaying, for months, the opening of customs.
