Miguel Angel Moratinos, former Spanish Foreign Minister and expert in agriculture, called on the European Union to integrate southern Mediterranean countries, including Morocco, within their Common Agriculture Policy in an exclusive interview with Middle East Online.
“I advice the EU leadership before taking any decision on the CAP’s future to integrate some complementarities between the European bloc and Africa,” Moratinos told Middle East Online.
The outgoing Moratinos called for the CAP’s expansion to include southern Mediterranean states.
“CAP should be called Mediterranean Agricultural Policy due to the importance of our neighbouring Arab countries in the agriculture industry and in order to avoid misunderstandings in the future,” said Moratinos who is also advisor to the Qatari government.
EU-Morocco cooperation
Moratinos stressed that the cooperation between the EU and Morocco in agriculture was getting stronger as EU seeks to guarantee food security.
“Each EU member state has been seeking to develop a special relationship with Morocco in agriculture since the enlargement of the European block,” Moratinos told Middle East Online.
Morocco and Germany signed on Thursday two agricultural cooperation agreements on technical support to cooperatives and entrepreneurship.
Morocco also inked cooperation agreements with Belgium for the development of sustainable agriculture and solidarity and rural economy and the enhancement of the safety of food products.
Last year, the European Parliament adopted an agreement to liberalise Morocco-EU trade in agricultural and fisheries products which experts saw as a step towards a more extensive free trade deal.
The agreement enabled an increase in some quotas for zero or low duty imports. 55% of tariffs on Morocco agricultural and fisheries products (rising from 33%) were lifted as well as 70% of tariffs on EU agricultural and fisheries products within 10 years (rising from 1%).
Growing Chinese food needs
“China can be both a threat and opportunity. Of course, the Chinese are looking for their own interest to satisfy the needs of their huge population,” said Moratinos, adding that “we have to decide together between Europeans and southern Mediterranean countries to look for a common interest and work together in order to impose our conditions on China rather than have a defensive attitude.”
“Together, we can enforce a dialogue with China. The Chinese are approaching country by country and area by area, a strategy that the EU should have done a long time ago,” he stressed.
China has seen a dramatic ninefold increase in total meat consumption since 1963 while consumption of fruit and vegetables has continued to increase over the past 30 years well above the world average thanks to a fourfold surge in per capita income following the economic reforms of the late 1970s, which is impacting their nutrition lifestyle.
“We need to guarantee food security and develop the potential of the Mediterranean zone in the global world,” Moratinos noted.
Food insecurity
If we thoroughly analyse the Arab Spring, the New England Complex Systems Institute found that riots around the world, especially in the Arab world, were trigged by food price rises, said Moratinos.
The Institute’s evidence was gathered from two sources. The first is data gathered by the United Nations that plots the price of food against time, the food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. The second is the date of riots around the world, whatever their cause.
“What is the real food security situation in the Mediterranean area?” He asked.
“We notice that there are enormous challenges which are: the important demographic growth, desertification due to climate change, dwindling water reserves and the Maghreb states’ lack of integration within the Maghreb Union,” he said.
Moratinos cited the example of phosphate-rich Morocco and gas exporting Algeria. He said that if “the two countries manage to integrate these two fundamental resources, they can make fertilisers which will guarantee the agricultural development not only in the Maghreb but the whole African continent.”
Solutions
Moratinos suggested complimentary solutions for a better north-south cooperation.
“There should be complimentarity of the agricultural growth, energy (gas and solar energy) in the south and research, innovation, technology, water management techniques in the north,” he said.
“All these elements can guarantee food security in both sides of the Mediterranean region,” he concluded.
