The grant is the largest foreign contribution to Morocco’s Special Fund for the Management and Response to COVID-19.
Rabat – The European Union (EU) has allocated an additional €450 million for its Moroccan assistance budget to support the North African country in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EU will allocate €150 million immediately to Morocco’s Special Fund for the Management and Response to COVID-19, while the remaining €300 million will be mobilized at a later date.
Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the EU made the announcement on Friday, March 27, following a telephone conversation between the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, and the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy, Oliver Varhelyi.
The conversation focused on the evolution of the coronavirus in Morocco and Europe, along with the implemented measures at the national, regional, and international levels to respond to the pandemic.
Varhelyi affirmed the EU is ready to support Morocco in its medical, economic, and social efforts against the pandemic, commending Morocco’s “strong and necessary” measures to keep the COVID-19 spread under control.
Morocco and the EU maintain strong ties based on multilateral cooperation in the fields of trade, immigration, and counterterrorism.
In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, King Mohammed VI ordered the creation of a special fund for the fight against the pandemic, with a budget of $1 billion.
One week after the creation of the fund, the budget approaches a balance of $3 billion thanks to donations from Moroccan philanthropists, businesspeople, and public and private institutions.
On March 26, the US Embassy in Rabat revealed that the Emergency Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious Diseases at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) granted Morocco $670,000 to support its response to the coronavirus outbreak.
