Looking up at the stars

Morocco is about to acquire special EU status and Martin Jay reckons it’s all part of a big plan to get cosy with the neighbours

The dried-up river bed that snakes through the rocky landscape gives a clue to how this Berber community was once prosperous.

Afeyen is a typical Moroccan village, a few hours south of Marrakesh. There may be neither post office nor bank, but the 150 inhabitants of the village count themselves lucky to have electricity and a few shops to serve their needs.

Walking through the main road that straddles the village, you can’t help noticing, though, that in this arid landscape, water is in desperately short supply, and the little they have is poor quality and can’t be used for drinking.

There is no real economy in Afeyen, and so the majority of villagers simply cannot afford the €35 it costs for a delivery from the town’s own water tanker, which stands defiantly in front of the collection of kiosks in a space which is used, once a week, as a marketplace for nomadic housewives. For these people, Morocco’s expected economic boom couldn’t come sooner, as they wait patiently for the trickle-down effect to reach them.

This is a village entirely funded by family members leaving to work in bigger cities, which serves as a simplified example of how Morocco’s economy will flourish: sending money home.
Since the EU enlargement process has come almost to a halt, the EU is now shifting more and more of its interests – particularly trade relations – towards north Africa and the Middle East.

This is a move which has been reinforced by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently cut the tape on a grandiose new organisation – a union for the Mediterranean – in a bid to develop relations with the EU’s neighbours, a controversial move which the European commission makes little attempt to hide its scorn for, and is often attacked as the French premier’s ‘anti-Turkey’ ace card.

The bigger picture is that by 2012, the Barcelona process will pave the way for the EU’s boldest international move yet – to create a single free-trade area with most of these north African countries, which in itself has huge implications for immigration and further cultural integration.

But it’s Morocco that stands tall as a leader in the region, and the first to step forward as a key benefactor of special neighbour status in the form of a new trade agreement – due to be signed in January 2009 – giving it many privileges as a trading partner with the EU (similar to those granted earlier to Ukraine).

The ‘advanced status’ the EU is to grant Morocco will be a precedent for all Euromed countries and will be very closely watched, particularly by Tunisia and Egypt. Algeria will also raise a weary eyebrow on the process, as some hope Algiers might soon join the EU’s own neighbourhood policy.

Yet Morocco’s economy – and its neighbours – will accelerate regardless, when more of the country’s citizens are allowed to live and work in Europe, sending more hard currency back home. In Rabat, the government has been making real progress securing a new deal with the EU allowing more Moroccans to work in Europe.

You just have to mention the words “immigration quotas” to EC mandarins working on the dossier – and to hear their swift denials – to realise that this is what is really important for Rabat.

“Immigration is one of the elements of negotiation when we speak of freedom of circulation of goods,” says Taib Fassi Fihri, Morocco’s foreign minister. “We also speak of freedom of people.”

But even the minister is pragmatic about which areas of the economy will benefit and which businesses will be left hanging by a fine thread. The textiles sector, for example, is really battling to compete with competition from China. One key area that is expected to grow is tourism, which is equally relevant for Egypt and Tunisia.

The Moroccan government has its own target to swell the numbers of visitors from six to 10 million a year, and the European commission is expected to help this area with funding and assistance in the coming years – training being one of the concrete demands of the industry itself, plus experts to help the government.

There’s a fair deal of optimism from most MEPs, as Morocco will soon achieve the same status from the EU as Ukraine. One MEP, who knows Morocco very well and hopes to retire there, is Belgian’s former foreign minister, Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck.

“I believe that the European parliament on the whole attaches great importance to those links with that country…We understand that having those links helps Morocco and the Moroccan people along the road to democracy and a more open economy,” she argues.

Robert Evans, a British Socialist, is also passionate about the deal. “It’s about forging modern partnerships and I think Morocco is an example and could be the model for other countries, whether it be the other countries of north Africa, Egypt or Ukraine or wherever they are…These will be models for the EU’s relationship with its neighbouring countries.”

But not everyone on the EU scene is so enthusiastic. Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner is more pragmatic: “Morocco has started to do quite a lot of reform in the society but it has to go on to work on education, to work on justice, the justice sector, gender issues, rural development,” she said recently.

In fact, rural development is a key reason for Morocco wanting to improve relations with Brussels. Its agricultural produce is only a few hours away by road from European supermarkets, and a big part of the new agreements the EU is forging with Euromed countries will allow them to export their produce to EU markets without imposing tariffs.

Morocco is hoping to secure such a deal as part of the advanced statute, which will allow more of its citrus fruits into Europe. The big market for these fruits is currently Russia, but all that could soon change, despite minor grumblings from Spanish agricultural unions, who are afraid of their own produce being affected by Moroccan imports to the EU zone.

MEPs will now be watching the Morocco file very carefully, as these are unprecedented times that will bring this Maghreb country even closer to Europe, in trade, common values and movement of people.

It’s a huge step for both Morocco and Brussels, and one which will not be rushed.