The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres (left), meeting with the President of the Moroccan Government, Aziz Ajanuch, this Wednesday in Rabat. Jalal Morchidi (EFE)
The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, the socialist Ángel Víctor Torres, traveled this Wednesday to Rabat in search of the commercial fruits derived from the rapprochement of Spain with Morocco, after the turn taken by the central Executive on the Western Sahara conflict.
One year after the letter from President Pedro Sánchez to King Mohamed VI was sent, in which the head of the Spanish Executive considered the Moroccan autonomy proposal for the former Spanish colony as the "most serious, realistic and credible", Torres heads a large delegation of businessmen from the islands.
These are sectors interested in spreading their sails in a market located just a hundred kilometers from its eastern shores with the favorable wind of the new phase of relations between the two countries.
Morocco has received the Canarian president with a careful protocol, reserved for distinguished neighbors.
Torres has met with the Prime Minister, Aziz Ajanuch, and the head of Foreign Affairs, Naser Burita, and Transport, Mohamed Abdelyalil, as well as with the president of the House of Representatives of the Parliament, Talbi Alami.
The delegation that he heads together with the Minister of Economy, Elena Máñez, and of Ecological Transition, José Antonio Valbuena, has a working session scheduled for tomorrow with the General Confederation of Moroccan Businessmen in Casablanca.
In the economic capital of the North African country, an agreement will be signed between the Economic Development Society of the Canary Islands Government and the Spain-Morocco Economic Council.
The delimitation of the maritime borders in the Atlantic, which Morocco unilaterally expanded in 2020 over the Spanish exclusive economic zone corresponding to the Canary Islands, is one of the pending issues between the two countries to determine who owns the exploitation of their resources.
Spain closely follows the prospecting projects for hydrocarbon deposits that Rabat has designed in these waters.
Torres told the press at the Spanish Embassy in Rabat that his administration's delegates are aware of the talks between Rabat and Madrid.
"The Canary Islands are participating with two people in meetings with representatives of Morocco and Spain," he specified.
Officials from the Canary Islands employers' association, chambers of commerce and industrial and logistics associations make up a delegation that includes companies from the agri-food, chemical products and ship repair sectors, among others, who will analyze possibilities of alliances with companies Moroccans.
The Government of the Canary Islands also wants to reopen the maritime line between Puerto del Rosario (Fuerteventura) and Tarfaya, on the Moroccan coast near the Sahara, which was suspended after a shipwreck in 2008. Torres confirmed in Rabat that he has officially requested the resumption of this service .
The President of the Canary Islands also announced the commissioning of "three new air links with Morocco, through the Binter regional line, with Tangier (north) and Essaouira and Agadir (south)".
At the High Level Meeting held in Rabat in February, the first since 2015, the reconciliation between the governments of Spain and Morocco was staged after a period of disagreements.
Spanish companies are now fighting for a piece of the 45,000 million pie that Morocco plans to invest in the development and modernization of its infrastructures until 2050. "Enormous opportunities are opening up that Spain cannot miss out on," Spanish government sources said at the time in the Moroccan capital.
The climate of rapprochement between Rabat and Madrid has also had an impact on irregular immigration flows.
The amount that arrives by sea in the Canary Islands, mostly from the coasts of Morocco and Western Sahara, fell by almost 30% in 2022, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior, after having reached peaks in the two previous years. .
"We have to return to the levels of irregular immigration prior to 2019," President Torres said in Rabat.
"Now there are more means provided by the Government to deal with them than we had in the 2020 crisis."
In the Canary Islands, a decline has been observed that has not been seen since the route was reactivated in 2019, going from less than 3,000 arrivals per year to more than 20,000.
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