The Diplomat
The Spanish and Moroccan authorities will carry out in the coming days the third pilot test for the commercial opening of the customs offices of Ceuta and Melilla, after those carried out at the end of January and at the end of February.
According to Spanish and Moroccan diplomatic sources informed the news agencies Efe and Europa Press, the decision to carry out this third test was agreed last Wednesday during a high-level meeting in Madrid.
Specifically, the Ministry of Interior hosted a meeting between the two countries to address, among other issues, the Operation Crossing the Strait 2023, and attended, among others, responsible for the Directorate General for the Maghreb, Mediterranean and Middle East of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ambassador of Morocco in Spain, Karima Benyaich, and the director of Migration and Border Surveillance of Morocco, Khalid Zerouali. According to the aforementioned Moroccan sources, important advances were made at the meeting to achieve the full normalization of the transit of goods and people between both sides of the border.
The first pilot test, carried out on January 27, made it possible to check on the ground the response capacity of the two countries. The second test, carried out on February 24, served to incorporate “solutions to many of the technical difficulties detected in the successful pilot test carried out on January 27,” according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These tests, according to Foreign Affairs, are in line with the schedule set by the two countries during the last High Level Meeting (RAN), held on February 1 and 2 in Rabat.
The opening of land customs controls in Melilla (paralyzed since October 2018) and the establishment of a new customs office in Ceuta, which currently does not exist, is on the roadmap agreed on April 7, 2022 in Rabat by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and King Mohamed VI of Morocco, in full recovery of bilateral relations (which were severely damaged in 2021) as a result of the unexpected decision of the Spanish Government to recognize the Moroccan plan for autonomy of Western Sahara.
In any case, there are still no concrete dates for the opening of customs, which has generated some concern in the two autonomous cities. In early March, the Senate approved a resolution, proposed by the PP and rejected by the PSOE, to make public the timetable for opening.
