The governments of Spain and Morocco will hold their first High-Level Meeting since 2015, on February 1-2, 2023, as the Spanish Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Albares, confirmed today.
According to the Spanish official Agency, EFE, Albares said that Spain’s Head of Government, Pedro Sanchez, would travel to the Moroccan capital Rabat, with the companion of a ‘dozen’ ministers, but, he did not mention who these ministers are.
"This is the first meeting of this type since 2015 and it is one of the great milestones of the roadmap agreed upon with Morocco last April," Albares pointed out.
Albares clarified for the first time, the High-Level Meeting appointment after it was postponed several times without fixing a clear date for it.
The Moroccan Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita, had said last year, that this meeting would be held in the earlies of 2023, and said that Rabat and Madrid were working to prepare for the meeting.
The next High-Level Meeting comes in the context of the two countries having the desire to strengthen their cooperation at all levels after a tense diplomatic crisis disturbed the bilateral relation between Madrid and Rabat for almost one year.
The sparks of the crisis erupted when Rabat learned on April 2021 that Spain had accepted to host the leader of the Separatist front of ‘Polisario’, Brahim Ghali, to be treated inside its territory for his Covid-19 infection.
Morocco cut its diplomatic relations with Spain and reduced the level of cooperation with Madrid, which pushed the latter, on March 2022, to take a new stance in the case of Sahara by supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan to end the crisis.
On the other hand, the next meeting between the Spanish government and its Moroccan counterpart comes in the context of the two neighboring countries' desire to find solutions for the outstanding files, such as the maritime borders, and commercial customs in Ceuta and Melilla.
