Morocco Warns EU: Cooperation at Risk over Migrant Crisis Resolution

"Spain’s attempts to involve the European Parliament in a conflict by taking advantage of the migration issue risk compromising not only our long tradition of cooperation, but also our common commitments and Morocco’s mutually beneficial cooperation with European countries and with the Parliament." These were the words used on Monday by Chaoui Belas, the president of the Morocco-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee, in a letter to European MPs.

"The draft resolution of the Spaniards, which is an initiative of the Spanish Ciudadanos MEPs, is a manoeuvre to avoid the real problem" of the reception of Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, in a Spanish hospital, explained Chaoui Belas in his letter, urging the MEPs "not to subscribe to Spain’s attempt to instrumentalize Europe [...] in order to persist in its refusal to assume its historical responsibility with Morocco while its credibility is at stake," an allusion to "the obligation" for Spain to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara.

The other parliamentary groups will not fail to amend this text. For the Socialists for example, Morocco "has used irregular immigration as a political instrument, thus violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a Member State." In the same vein, the Greens add that Morocco has acted with the intention of "obtaining political advantages in Western Sahara".

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Before the adoption on Thursday of this resolution, the European Parliament should take the opinion of the European executive, which will be given by the Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli. For the first time in 25 years, Morocco is the subject of a resolution condemning it for human rights violations. The initiative comes from the MEPs of the Renew Europe parliamentary group, composed among others of President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche and the Basque Nationalist Party. But the original draft of the project, written by MEP Jordi Cañas, firmly condemned Morocco’s negligence that led to the arrival of nearly 2,000 underage migrants in Ceuta, of whom 1,200 were taken care of by the local authorities and some 300 continue to wander the streets.