Spain’s King Juan Carlos has resumed his trip to Morocco which had to be postponed due to a discal hernia operation.
He was initially invited by King Mohammed VI to visit in April, but the latest in a series of major but non-life-threatening surgical interventions forced him to call it off.
The Monarch will now travel to Rabat, on July 15 in the company of foreign affairs minister José Manuel García-Margallo and other senior Spanish officials.
This is the Spanish King’s first official Royal engagement since his surgery, which was on the same date as he was due to fly to Rabat.
After learning of the cancellation of the first trip, King Mohammed VI sent a message to the Monarch ‘as a personal friend’ to wish him well in his recovery.
Spain has a strong and very close working relationship with Morocco, with many Spanish businesses – from hotels to renewable energy and consultancies – set up there and many more interested in doing so.
Spain’s network of schools in Morocco is its largest educational system abroad.
King Juan Carlos’s last visit to Morocco was in May 2011 following the Marrakesh terrorist on April 2011 that killed 17 people in the city of Marrakech. The blast, from a bomb left in a bag that destroyed the Argana cafe in Jemaa el-fnaa square, a popular tourist spot. At least 20 people were injured. Most of the dead were tourists, including one group of French students. King Juan Carlos decided at that time to visit personally King Mohammed to show and reiterate Spain’s full and unconditional support to Morocco.
This visit is pregnant with meaning since the Spanish-Moroccan relations have witnessed ups and downs but the relations between the two monarchs has always been friendly and family like. In fact the close relations between the two royal families have always been tied and have never been impacted by frequent political and trade misunderstanding between the two neighboring countries.
This time, the visit will aim to give a new impetus to the bilateral relations between the two nations. Spain and Morocco have a lot in common and a strong and efficient joint collaboration can benefit the two countries on various levels. Morocco and Spain could inaugurate a new partnership with new tools, new instruments and a new vision. The vision is to reinforce their political dialogue and to give priority to business because today what is important is how to do business. The partnership will benefit both countries.
Spain could bring its experience to Moroccan in the fields where there is a need and will also provide it with the techniques Spain developed. Spain has around 20,000 small and medium-sized businesses that export to Morocco and is keen to keep its share of the Moroccan market.
Morocco is looking to diversify its markets and doing all it can to attract foreign investments in a difficult climate.
Indeed, in Morocco there is a strong belief that the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar have impacted on each other for centuries and therefore cultural exchanges with Spain have been constantly contributing to the enrichment of universal culture.In this regard, it is noted that many intellectuals have begun to point out the important role of culture in the analysis of relations between Moroccan and Spanish people, so that cultures play a crucial role in current and future history.
It becomes necessary to seek formulas that shape these relationships in order to enrich the cultural dialogue, get a positive vision that highlights the cultural contributions and boost mutual objective understanding of common historical reality, a common history that Moroccan and Spanish are rightfully proud of. In this context both Moroccans and Spanish still remember the valuable statements that came in King Mohammed’s speech during his , his official visit to Spain in 2000: “Our common heritage still surprised by its humanism, its truth and modernity in the very dawn of the third millennium”.
Throughout the history of al-Andalus, Morocco and Spain made this Mediterranean region a historical area with a huge projection and resonance especially in Europe, North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. In addition, the Andalusian era reinforced Moroccan and Spanish linguistic similarities and literary forms of art, original architectural designs in short great schools of thought … that, at all times, remind us of the spiritual and intellectual flow that covered both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.
All of the above, we can say that Morocco is the Arab-Muslim North African country that has had major historical cultural links with Spain. But the historical past should not be a closed chapter in Moroccan and Spanish relations. Its pages, always should remain open, remind us that Morocco and Spain are custodians of a rich cultural heritage of humanity, but at the same time tell us that we must look to the future, a common future in an increasingly globalized world.
In this context, Morocco has chosen in the past two decades to consolidate economic and cultural relations with Spain. If this is the position of Morocco, it is also true that Spain was interested, at least since the beginning of the enlargement of the European Union, to counterbalance the tendency to shift the center of gravity to the north and east of Europe. Strengthening cooperation programs with the Maghreb countries and thus contributing to the stability and security in the Mediterranean.
In a speech he made during one of his state visits to Morocco King Juan Carlos said in a wise statement: “We need to clean up our mutual visions from false images, preconceived ideas and sometimes simplifications that reduce our crude clichés reciprocal knowledge. Moroccan and Spanish should be econcouraged to study their common history in serene and profound reflection on the personality of each and avatars that have been formed, such emotions and feelings will clarify our historical distortion and not negatively impact our judgment “.
Years later, King Mohammed VI arises again in his speech at the Zarzuela Palace on the occasion of his official visit to Spain in September 2000, the need to: “Promote a better understanding and a mutual understanding to overcome the last taboos and prejudices that are holding back and sometimes weaken the enormous potential of affinities that characterizes our two people.”
Conscious of the need to remedy this situation, Moroccan and Spanish intellectuals decided to boost cultural dialogue between Morocco and Spain, favoring the organization of meetings between representatives of the culture of both countries. In this context, in 1985 was created in Asilah, the Summer University Ibero-Moroccan-American Mutamid Ibn Al-Abbad in homage to the great king poet of Seville. The honorary president of the university was, at that time, the Crown Prince Sidi Mohamed. This university was established as fundamental mission “to spread and contribute to the development of cultural and scientific relations between Morocco, Spain, Portugal and the peoples of Latin America that, through language, customs, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, their native cultures incorporated much the Hispano-Arab relations”.
Morocco and Spain require neighborly relations and not historical mistrust and cultural stereotypes. They also need to recognize the complex reality of their relationship and seek alternative routes to potential conflicts without risking any misunderstanding. This is the real challenge we have to deal with.
