Melila: Far-Right Vox Urges Spain to Restrain Moroccan Food Exports

Rabat – With Morocco and Spain having recently agreed to end their year-long diplomatic crisis and consolidate their cooperation, Javier Diego, secretary of the Melilla branch of the Spanish far-right party Vox, has taken issue with the apparent increase in exchanges between the two countries in recent weeks.

Yet again speaking out against Moroccan food exports to Spain, the far-right representative especially criticized the number of trucks that crossed from Almeria to Nador in recent weeks.

Vox Melilla has long been a vocal critic of Spain-Morocco relations. On Sunday last week, the party issued a statement that strongly rejected the Spanish Foreign Minister’s comments that Madrid is determined to mend ties with Morocco and start a new phase of bilateral cooperation based on dialogue and mutual respect.

“Once again, the [Spanish] government is confusing the enemy with a good ally,” Vox Melilla said.

In his comments about what he characterized as an unacceptable increase in Spanish agricultural imports from Morocco, Diego, the Vox Melilla secretary, appeared vented his frustration at the news that more than 8,400 drivers of goods transport vehicles made the crossing from Almeria to Nador in a span of a month after the reopening of the maritime border between Spain and Morocco.

“Why are there so many trucks crossing the border? … to bring yogurts to Morocco or to bring tomatoes to Spain?” Diego said, arguing that this is a step to “compete with [Spain’s] national products],” according to the local news website El Faro de Melilla.

Morocco’s tomatoes exports to Spain exceeded 80 million kilograms in 2021.

Diego claimed that “Morocco decides what enters its country, preventing citizens from transporting food or small goods, while Spain does not use reciprocity and allows the entry of food into Melilla.”

While Morocco has agreed to reopen its borders with Ceuta and Melilla on May 17, authorities in the North African kingdom have insisted that they will not allow the resumption of contraband activities.

Prior to border closure in 2020, the total value of smuggling goods from Ceuta and Melilla to neighboring Moroccan cities reached €1 billion (MAD 10.53 billion).

Vox’s representative in Melilla believes that Spain’s security forces are working “in painful conditions, with a shortage of personnel and without having a clear idea of their specific functions.”

Claiming that Morocco “suffocates the autonomous cities” of Ceuta and Melilla, Diego called for “forcefulness and reciprocity in relations” with Rabat. It is necessary to “stop treating Morocco as a good neighbor,” he said.

This isn’t the first time a Vox representative has attacked Moroccan agricultural exports. Earlier this year, the Spanish media reported that Vox’s parliamentary group was working on a bill aimed at legalizing the awarding of public catering contracts exclusively to the use of “Spanish or European products.”

Lamenting the significant increase in Spain’s agricultural imports from Morocco in recent years, the party notably rebuked the European 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.”