Rabat – The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Ireland announced on March 9 the appointment of James McIntyre as ambassador to Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia, with a residence in Rabat.
McIntyre will be Ireland’s first ambassador to Morocco, with an Irish embassy set to open in the near future under the “Global Ireland – Ireland’s Global Footprint to 2025” initiative.
A press statement from Irish Foreign Ministry explains that the “appointments to new missions in Morocco (Embassy in Rabat) and Great Britain (Consulate General in Manchester) both of which are due to open later this year,” come under the framework of the Global Ireland Programme.
Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney initially announced the decision to open an embassy in Rabat in June 2018. Ireland has two honorary consuls stationed in Morocco, one in Casablanca and one in Agadir, but never an embassy or an ambassador.
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“Ireland is so far one of the few European Union member states without presence in North Africa…a new embassy in Rabat will allow us to develop trading opportunities, especially in the fields of agri-food, agricultural machinery and renewable energy,” said Coveney on the occasion.
Global Ireland 2025 is an initiative that aims to define Ireland’s global outlook and to increase the scope and impact of Ireland’s footprint by 2025.
“It’s very much part of Ireland’s post-Brexit diplomatic strategy,” said Chloe Teevan, a researcher at the European Centre for Development Policy Management.
Ireland is seeking to strengthen its “diplomatic network within the EU, but also in countries that are of key strategic importance to the EU, which is clearly the case with Morocco,” Teevan explained to Middle East Online.
The ambassador’s appointment comes at an opportune time, considering Morocco’s bearings as a prime investment destination and the gateway to Africa, as well as Ireland’s position as Morocco’s biggest investor in 2018.
According to the Moroccan Foreign Exchange Office, direct foreign investment from Ireland stood at MAD 9.7 billion ($1.1 billion), outperforming France, whose net FDI flow stood at MAD 8.12 billion ($839 million).
