The Council of Ministers will approve today the granting of aid to Morocco worth 30 million euros to fight against the mafias that traffic in people, according to ministerial sources told La Vanguardia. It is a new gesture towards the “loyal” partner –as defined in Moncloa– that takes place at a time when statistics confirm that the new stage with Morocco has served to contain irregular immigration.
It is the fourth time that direct aid of this type has been approved for Rabat since Pedro Sánchez arrived at Moncloa in 2018. Most coincide with episodes in which Morocco has sent signals to the central government in which it warned that its collaboration police –or not– marks the migratory pressure suffered by Spain. The first was in the summer of 2019, when the Canarian route was reactivated with boats from areas controlled by gendarmes. The Government delivered on that occasion 32 million. In May 2020 – in the middle of the pandemic – another 31 million were transferred.
The third monetary injection was approved in the Council of Ministers on May 21, 2021 and was 30 million. That same week, more than 10,000 people – most of them minors – swam across to Ceuta, encouraged by Rabat and given the permissiveness of the Moroccan police. That moment marked the point of maximum tension of the diplomatic crisis that began with the reception in Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali for a serious illness and that ended last March with the Spanish turn regarding the Saharawi conflict. .
The aid, which today will have the green light from the Council of Ministers, is produced with statistics in favor of the Government. The agreement sealed in the spring between Pedro Sánchez and Mohamed VI included as a common challenge the management of migratory flows in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic “always acting in a spirit of total cooperation”. Since then, irregular immigration to Spain has been declining. A trend that is intended to be maintained by joining forces in the face of the threat of a possible new jump to Melilla after four months of truce. Dozens of sub-Saharan Africans are currently waiting for their opportunity on Mount Gurugú.
The purpose of the subsidy is to help defray the costs of operational deployments such as patrols and surveillance of maritime borders. The aid will also be used for maintenance costs of the materials used by the gendarmes, as well as the per diems that those Moroccan policemen during the development of the actions of collaboration with Spain in the fight against illegal trafficking and trafficking in human beings.
Morocco is not only the country from which immigrants arriving on Spanish shores leave. The Alawite kingdom suffers from enormous migratory pressure. The unofficial media in Morocco assure that so far in 2022 more attempts to leave by boat to the Canary Islands have been prevented than last year. Police sources assure that Moroccan collaboration is materializing in attacks on human trafficking networks and in interceptions on the high seas. There are also dark episodes, such as the massive jump to the Melilla fence last June, which ended with at least 24 immigrants killed after an avalanche occurred due to the crudeness with which the Moroccan policemen acted.
The North African country estimates the amount it needs to fight against irregular immigration at 427 million euros per year. For this reason, the package of the European Union of 500 million euros for the period 2021-2027 – 50% more than in the previous period (2014-2020) – knows little. “Within the framework of good cooperation and good neighborliness and shared responsibility, we consider that what is destined is below what we want,” said the Moroccan head of migration, Khalid Zerouali, last month.
