Fez – The Spanish far-right VOX party is attacking Morocco again, this time on agricultural issues. The Spanish outlet Ceuta Al Dia has reported that VOX’s parliamentary group is planning to present a bill aimed at legalizing the awarding of public catering contracts exclusively to the use of “Spanish or European products.”
According to the report, the party insists that “Spanish farmers, ranchers, and fishermen are unprotected.” Alluding to Morocco’s agreements with the EU, VOX criticized the European body’s “free trade and cooperation that favors providing funds to third countries to develop their agriculture.”
The party also rebuked the union for “allowing the entry of products that do not comply with [Spanish or European]regulations… sometimes exceeding the quotas established in the treaties themselves.”
While the EU continues to advocate for exponentially increased imports from third countries, including Morocco, VOX claimed, “Spain has excellent food of the highest quality.”
The far-right party went on to lament the fact that Spain’s agricultural imports from Morocco have multiplied in recent years. “The import of watermelon has multiplied by 9 in the last five years, [of which] 80 percent from Morocco,” the party said, adding that “tomato imports from the African country has increased by 148 percent in a decade.”
VOX’s new Morocco-obsessed bill comes less than two weeks after the party’s victory in Andalusia. On December 23, the Andalusian Parliament’s plenary meeting endorsed an idea presented by Vox about requiring bidders in catering tenders to utilize only Spanish agricultural products.
Read also: Spanish Party Calls for Demolition of Morocco’s Fish Farm Near Chafarinas Islands
Reports suggest VOX’s representatives in Ceuta and Andalusia coordinated in shaping and presenting this bill on Moroccan tomatoes and watermelon.
While it has a long history of anti-migration and anti-Moroccan stances and policy recommendations, VOX is not the only right-wing Spanish party to have recently taken issue with warming Spain-Morocco relations.
Like VOX, the more traditional right-wing, Christian conservative People’s Party has also recently lashed out at the Spanish government for not being confrontational enough in dealing with Morocco’s establishment of fish farms near the Chafarinas Islands.
For VOX, meanwhile, Spain’s so-called Moroccan problem goes beyond the warming good relations between Madrid and Rabat. Since last October at least, the far-right party has continued to stir controversy by fueling xenophobic and anti-Moroccan sentiment in Ceuta.
