Morocco’s new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane met Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday for talks to mend troubled ties and a fishing dispute that has hit Madrid badly.
Other irritants include security and immigration issues as well as the thorny question of Western Sahara, a region Morocco annexed in 1976 after former colonial power Spain moved out.
“We need a long and patient dialogue to settle all the questions on which we do not agree,” Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Eddine Othmani told AFP ahead of the visit.
Both Bekirane, from the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), and Rajoy, who heads a right-leaning government, were elected in November.
On top of the menu is a fishing row between the European Union and Rabat, which has hit Spain — a major consumer of fish and a country with one of Europe’s largest fishing fleets.
In December, the European Parliament cancelled a deal allowing EU trawlers to fish in Moroccan waters for annual payments, prompting Rabat to immediately ban all European fishing boats.
Spain is seeking compensation from the EU.
European legislators said they wanted to wait until the interests of Western Sahara were considered before agreeing to a 12-month extension of the deal.
Under the deal, Morocco would have received 36 million euros ($46 million) to let some 120 fishing boats, mainly from Spain, operate in its waters.
Morocco’s fisheries minister, Aziz Akhannouch, had said that the move had “very negative consequences for the relationship between the EU and Morocco”.
Morocco on the other hand wants freer access to European markets for its agricultural produce which Spain is blocking, fearing its markets will be flooded by cheaper fruits and vegetables.
The other irritant is clandestine immigration from Morocco by sea or through the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in north Africa.
“Our relations cannot but improve,” Bankirane said at a press conference also addressed by Rajoy after the meeting.
“Our aim is to launch a new stage of deep and solid cooperation at all levels,” Rajoy said.
“To fight clandestine immigration, one has to invest in the south and Spanish firms are welcome in Morocco,” said foreign minister Othmani, adding that up to 500 Spanish companies were already present in the country.
Othmani, a psychiatrist by training, said he was open to “listen” to resolve all irritants.
All of these issues would be discussed by the ministers concerned before being put before a joint commission presided by the two premiers.
In the meantime, “priority should be accorded to economic questions as the situation is difficult for the entire region,” he said.
Economists have warned that Spain may be back in recession with the economy likely to contract in the first quarter of 2012. The Bank of Spain said the economy shrank in the last quarter of 2011.
But small and medium Spanish enterprises can invest in Morocco, which recorded 5 percent growth in 2011 and where labour costs are relatively cheap.
However Spanish investments in Morocco fell last year. But the country is the second biggest foreign investor in the North African kingdom after France.
Despite an unfavourable balance of trade with Spain, Moroccan exports grew 27.37 percent last year.
2012 AFP