The official trip of the French president, Emmanuel Macroncarried out this week in Morocco resulted in the signing of 40 trade and investment agreements worth 10 billion euros. Some of them affect Spanish companies, such as the railway sector, which remains in the hands of French companies.
But the citizens most affected by these agreements are the residents of Melilla, due to the French-Moroccan alliance to exploit the new port of Nador, just 50 kilometers from their city.
The French container ship owner CMA CGM signed on Tuesday with Marsa Maroc, Moroccan leader in port terminal management, a commercial cooperation agreement to equip and operate for 25 years old a section of the container terminal of the port of Nador West Med.
The French company announced joint investments worth approximately 258 million euroswith the aim of increasing commercial activity which will further isolate Melilla, which has failed to reestablish its relations with Morocco after the closure of customs and land borders by decision of Rabat.
For the operation of 50% of the Nador West Med container terminal, a joint venture is being created in which CMA CGM and Marsa Maroc will hold 49% and 51% respectively.
The news was received in Melilla with discouragement. Politicians and businessmen are showing their dismay after trying to resume, without success, border and commercial activities with the Nador region, in the north of Morocco, where the megaport is being built.
“Honestly, after more than six years of commercial customs closure and two and a half years of a one-way travel regime, from Morocco to Melilla, and nothing in the opposite direction, nothing else can affect ussince we currently have no commercial relations with Morocco”, laments Enrique Alcoba, president of the Confederation of Entrepreneurs of Melilla CEME-CEOE and the Association of Traders, in statements to EL ESPAÑOL.
The alternative studied in the Spanish city is to open a commercial and transport line. passengers with Algerialike those who operate from the peninsula. However, trade relations between Madrid and Algiers have been paralyzed since President Pedro Sánchez publicly supported Morocco’s autonomy plan as a solution to the conflict with Western Sahara.
Furthermore, “we think that the Spanish government, which is the one that must authorize it, will not be interested in it so as not to disturb Morocco,” says Alcoba.
For his part, the mayor, Juan Jose Imbrodaassures that these commercial proposals with Algeria are not new and that until the PP governs in Spain, they are only “dreams”. For the moment, no politician has put the issue on the table.
It is the CEME-CEOE which is trying to look for new markets and alternatives, even if its president recognizes that “what would be desirable would be to return to normality with Morocco with regard to the border, because that is what make the two cities, Melilla and NadorAlcoba says that currently the solution is to bypass the central government and “ask in Europe that Morocco respects Spain, in particular Ceuta and Melilla.”
Since Morocco closed the border due to Covid, around fifty commercial premises have had to close in Melilla. Since then, only Moroccans with a passport and Schengen Visa. Atypical trade has also been closed and, through the land border, it is not allowed to introduce any type of item from the neighboring country.
Miguel Marín, general secretary of the PP of Melilla, assures that even if the local government is committed to self-sufficiency with a model based on tourism, new technologies and universities, we must try to reopen commercial customs.
The Mohamed VI megaport in Betoya Bay, under construction since 2017, is located in a strategic area, 250 miles from the Strait of Gibraltar, opposite the main east-west maritime routes for the traffic of containers and petroleum products, with a planned capacity of 3.5 million containers.
It is one of the great pharaonic works of the reign of Mohamed VI in northern Morocco, next to Monte Aruit airport, also in Nador; and the Tanger Med port, at the gates of Ceuta. The launch of the entire port and logistics platform is planned for 2027.
It must be taken into account that more than 95% of traffic Moroccan goods transit through ports. Nador West Med was initially intended to be an extension of Tanger Med; But it is a gigantic port which will mean a radical change for the Rif and the eastern region, bordering Melilla.
As it did in Tangier with the automobile industry, Rabat wants to make this new port hub the spearhead of a national petrochemical industry. The objective is to unify all the cities of northern Morocco by seeking to create economic and tourist potential in the manner of Casablanca, which stifles Ceuta and Melilla.
