Spain Sold $443 Million Worth of Weapons to Morocco

Rabat – The Spanish government has reported that Morocco spent MAD 4 billion ($443 million) in the acquisition of Spanish weapons between 1991 and 2020.

The information was released as a response to senator Carles Mulet, representative of the Coalició Compromís party. 

The largest recorded purchases took place in 2009 and 2016. In 2009 alone, Morocco spent a total of MAD 331 million ($35 million) on smooth-bore weapons with a caliber greater than 20 mm,  ammunition, military devices, land vehicles, aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned vehicles (UAV), Spanish media reported. 

Most recently, the North African kingdom bought MAD 321 million ($34 million) worth of ammunition, military devices, torpedo bombs, rockets, missiles, aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, and unmanned vehicles (UAV),  they added. 

The largest disbursement, the cited sources said, concerned ground vehicles with a total of MAD 1.75 billion ($188 million) ahead of ammunition and devices as well as aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, and unmanned vehicles (UAVs) with a total respective cost of MAD 1 billion ($112 million) and MAD 106 million ($11 million).

Read Also: Spain Insists That Relations with Morocco Are Improving

In response to the news, the Spanish Coalició Compromís party “disgraced” the Spanish government for selling weapons to Morocco since 1991, which coincided with the Western Sahara ceasefire.

The ceasefire monitory is a key task of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sara, MINURSO. 203 United Nations Military Observers (UNMOs) carry out the mission “under the command of a Force Commander and under the overall authority of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara and Head of MINURSO,” according to their website. 

Yet Spain is not one of Morocco’s top three arms suppliers, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). 

In March 2021, the institute concluded that the United States is the main arms supplier for Morocco covering 90% of the country’s demand, ahead of France (9.2%) and the UK (0.3%).

Earlier this year, Morocco ranked 55th out of 140 countries in the 2022 “Global Firepower” ranking.