The Hungarian, Oliver Varhelyi, European Commissioner in charge of relations with the EU’s neighborhood and who also supervises the negotiations for accession to the European Union, a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is expected at the beginning of next month Rabat.
He should probably meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Living Abroad. This trip comes in a context of strong tensions between the Kingdom and the European Union and three weeks after the arrival of Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. It must be said that relations between the Kingdom and the EU are not fixed at the moment, but not at the executive level.
Indeed, let us remember, the dispute is with the European Parliament which recently adopted a resolution denouncing the attacks on freedom of the press in the Kingdom. Without incidences nor consequences however, the text not being binding. On the other hand, it rather annoys at the level of the Legislative as well in Strasbourg as in Rabat. But between the Moroccan capital and the European Commission Brussels, no cloud seems to be in sight. However, the Kingdom had never been singled out on issues relating to human rights and freedom of the press by the EU.
Oliver Varhelyi himself is targeted by the European legislative body. We take the same ones and start over, namely the group ofare Socialists and Democrats. On their initiative, thehe European Parliament had asked last week for an independent and impartial investigation to be carried out against him and two other MEPs to determine whether or not he had breached the European executive’s code of conduct.
This can be seen as a very tendentious trend currently very fashionable in the European hemicycle. Socialist MEPs accuse him of having “deliberately evaded and weakened the essential character of democratic reforms and the rule of law in the countries on the way to joining the European Union“. To which the spokesperson for the European Commission, Eric Mamer, responded.Enlargement policy is not in the hands of a Commissioner, but of the College of Commissioners, which takes decisions and assesses the situation of countries wishing to join“.
That said, the European Commissioner for Enlargement and the European Neighborhood Policy had already paid a visit to Morocco in March last year where he had met the Head of Diplomacy Nasser Bourita, the Minister of the Interior Abdelaouafi Laftit and the treasurer of the Kingdom Nadia Fettah, as well as thehe president of the CGEM, Chakib Alj. The senior European official reiterated the EU’s willingness to cooperate with Morocco to support small and medium-sized enterprises. The latter was then committed to developing its partnership with the Kingdom, particularly in the economic and business fields.