Spain and Morocco Interior Ministers Meet to Discuss Migration and Border Issues

15 June 2022 – byPrince@Bladi · 1 min read

The Spanish Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, meets this Wednesday his Moroccan counterpart, Abdelouafi Laftit, at the ministry’s headquarters. Issues related to migration flows, police cooperation and the Marhaba Operation will be on the agenda of this meeting, which comes in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Spain.

This meeting between the two ministers will help smooth out several issues of interest such as the reopening of the commercial customs in Melilla and the creation of a new one in Ceuta, indicate sources from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior to Huffington Post.

Spain and Morocco have agreed, in the joint declaration that sanctioned the meeting between Pedro Sanchez and Mohammed VI in Rabat on April 7, to reopen the borders of Ceuta and Melilla and to put in place appropriate customs controls. The borders have been reopened since May 17, but no commercial customs.

The issue will be addressed during the bilateral meetings scheduled "in the coming days," assures the Spanish government. For his part, the Director General of Customs of Morocco, Nabil Lakhdar, had declared that the current conditions do not allow the construction of customs posts in Ceuta and Melilla and that the issue "was not on the agenda" for Morocco, before rectifying that the decision will be taken at the highest level.

Category: Spain

Keywords:

Illegal immigration Spain Cooperation Algeria Abdelouafi Laftit Operation Marhaba