Germany approved €19.27 million in military equipment exports to Morocco in 2025, most of it surveillance and target-detection technology, according to the German government's annual arms export report, as Berlin and Rabat move to strengthen their defence cooperation.
The report, submitted to the Bundestag in August and highlighted this week by specialized international media, shows that Germany granted Morocco 26 individual export licences during the year.
In Germany, exports of military equipment require a licence from the federal government, which reports the licences it grants to parliament each year, by country and by category.
Devices used to locate, detect and identify targets, along with parts for target surveillance and tracking systems, accounted for 55.2% of the value approved for Morocco, the report shows. Components for armoured vehicles made up a further 30.9%.
The remaining value covered aircraft-related items, military electronic equipment, software and technology, according to the categories listed in the document.
Berlin also issued Morocco nine collective export licences, which, under German customs rules, allow a large number of exports to several specifically identified recipients.
Most of the value was approved in the second half of the year. The government's interim report for January to June 2025 listed 14 licences worth about €8.47 million.
This means the remaining 12 licences, worth some €10.8 million, were granted between July and December.
Morocco's share remains modest within Germany's overall defence exports, which reached €13.3 billion in 2025, slightly down from €13.4 billion in 2024, according to the Bundestag's press service, which summarised the report on 25 August.
EU and NATO member states, along with equivalent countries such as Australia, Japan and Switzerland, received approvals worth €8.7 billion, the press service said.
Licences for other countries, known as third countries and including Ukraine, totalled about €4.6 billion. Ukraine topped the list with €2.27 billion.
As a country outside both the EU and NATO, Morocco falls into the third-country group.
Germany decides on arms exports under its government's political principles on the matter, in which respect for human rights in the recipient country plays an important role, according to the German Foreign Office.
The licences granted in 2025 were followed this year by a new commitment between the two countries.
On 30 April 2026, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita received his German counterpart Johann Wadephul in Rabat for the second session of the Morocco-Germany Multidimensional Strategic Dialogue.
At the end of the talks, "the two Ministers expressed their intention to further strengthen military cooperation as well as armament and defence cooperation on the basis of mutual trust and respect."
The joint declaration stressed that a Declaration of Intent on Military Cooperation "will represent an important step towards a continued, ambitious, and beneficial military cooperation."
The two sides also welcomed progress in negotiating a bilateral security agreement and in setting up a security dialogue.
On the Sahara, Berlin reiterated in the same declaration that it regards Morocco's autonomy initiative as "a serious and credible basis for negotiations."
Germany had already set out this position in a joint declaration issued in Rabat in August 2022, describing the 2007 plan as a serious and credible effort by Morocco and a good basis for reaching an agreement.
The two ministers also "commended the mutual strategic and reliable partnership" between their countries on migration, according to the declaration.
They "reaffirmed their commitment to continue strengthening return and readmission processes as well as to improving professional mobility and legal migration."
The rapprochement is backed by solid economic ties. Germany imported goods worth more than €3.4 billion from Morocco in 2025 and exported just under €3.9 billion to the kingdom, according to the German Foreign Office.
Around 300 German companies do business in Morocco, 30 of which have production facilities or service branches, and they have created approximately 35,000 jobs in the country, the Foreign Office added.
In the arms market, however, Germany does not appear among Morocco's three main suppliers listed by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The United States accounted for 60% of Morocco's imports of major arms between 2021 and 2025, followed by Israel with 24% and France with 10%. SIPRI ranked Morocco as the world's 28th-largest arms importer over the period.
It is worth mentioning that Germany and Morocco are marking 70 years of diplomatic relations in 2026, an anniversary both countries described in their April declaration as an opportunity to celebrate "seven decades of historic partnership."
