GreenMed Journal
The fishing agreement between Morocco and the European Union (EU), pending ratification by King Mohamed VI since last February, will have to wait, as the open conflict regarding the access of Moroccan vegetables to the European market has become the priority.
“Tomatoes versus fish,” headlines the influential newspaper L’Economiste, adding that “Rabat delayed implementation of the fishing agreement” reporting about what everyone has been talking about in Rabat. On 23 April, at the inauguration of an agricultural forum in the city of Meknes, the Moroccan Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Aziz Ajanuch, and his (then) Spanish counterpart, Miguel Arias Cañete, denied that the two issues were connected, but in public everyone smiled sceptically, interpreting the statements as “politically correct”.
Moroccan fruit and vegetable exporters, who have been the ones protesting against the new conditions of entry for their products to the European market, understand that the problem has already crossed the sector’s boundaries. “It is a political problem; we are dealing with the country’s dignity,” said Munir Omar, a spokesman for the Association of Producers and Exporters of Fruits and Vegetables, APEFEL. According to the Moroccan government’s estimations, the entry into force of the new agricultural regulations (which will not happen until October) entail the loss of 30,000 jobs and export volumes dropping by 130,000 tonnes; a figure which the trade association has increased to 150,000 tonnes. Munir stressed that the issue is not just about fish and vegetables, but between Morocco and Spain. “Where do you think that Moroccan growers buy fertilisers, pesticides, greenhouse plastics and all other inputs? From Spain, so also in Spain will there be people losing from these new conditions.”
The new EU legislation, which will force Moroccan tomatoes to adhere to the preferential tariff quotas or to prices imposed by the World Trade Organisation, has been established precisely to try to impose clearer and less open to interpretation criteria. Analysts now believe that Morocco wishes to force the European Commission to revisit their own decisions on the agricultural issue, before the text reaches the European parliament, which seems unlikely.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Spanish fishing boats have been moored in the port for two years and four months waiting for the conflict to be resolved.
