Morocco reacting to the declarations of the Greek Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of migration, officially expressed its strong protests.
Indeed, Schinas, known for his hostility towards Morocco, had affirmed, on May 11 at the European Summit of Foreign Ministers in Brussels, that “Morocco politically exploits the migrant card“.
In his speech, during this European forum on security and defense, the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Migration had accused Morocco of resorting to “hybrid threatsand to use immigrants as “a weapon »he said, mixing both events on the Greek-Turkish border (Evros in 2020), and those in the occupied enclaves of Sebta and Melilla.
Also in its note of protest sent by the European Union directorate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad at the European Union Embassy in Rabat, Morocco expressed her “categorical rejection» declarations of Margaritis Schinas.
Rabat attached in its note, an appendix indicating the main hostile statements of Margaritis Schinas on the Kingdom and the occupied presides of Sebta and Melilla since May 2021, stressing that the Kingdom “expressed on several occasions, through various channels, the rejection of previous similar statements by the Vice-President of the Commission“, calling for “a definitive end to this attitude of hostility in order to maintain calm cooperation with the EU“.
This tocsin has aroused some resentment on the part of certain Spanish media as well as parties in Spain in particular those of the extreme right, which do not appreciate the emphasis placed on the Moroccanness of Sebta and Melilla. The Spanish newspaper “El Pais” on this subject and for the good cause, affirmed that “many officials in Brussels did not like the tone of Rabat’s response“.
Nabil Dariouch, an expert in international relations and particularly specialized in Spanish affairs, considered “strange and out of context that the European Union intervenes in certain bilateral issues, such as the problem of Sebta and Melilla. In what is proposed between Morocco and Spain, in their roadmap, it is stipulated that all issues concerning them must be resolved in a bilateral framework.“.
And about the annoyance of the Spanish authorities with this memorandum, Dariouch confirms that ‘it does not concern Spain, stressing that the protest note was addressed to the European Union Embassy in Rabat to call for non-interference in the case of the Spanish-Moroccan duo.
The expert further indicated that there are some parties who are trying to harm Moroccan-Spanish relations specifically in this period in order to embarrass the socialist government in an important election period, focusing the event on this message of protest. Moroccan. They amplify it by promoting it through the hard right in its newspapers and through extensions of the polisario front in Spain in social media.
Nabil Dariouch concluded by recalling “the use of Morocco as a map appeared essential for the right in the regional and municipal electoral campaign that took place, in Spain“. He recalled, in this regard, the attempt to involve Morocco in the affair of the Alliance for Melilla party, led by Mustafa Aberchan, accusing it of “manipulation of votes”, calling for “not to give the case more than its value, because it serves the strategy of the right and the extreme right in Spain and of the supporters of the polisario thesis in the Iberian peninsula“.