EU offers aid of €200m for Morocco earthquake rebuild
The European Union will offer 200 million euros ($210 million) to help Morocco earthquake reconstruction efforts, in what appears to be an olive branch in their thorny relationship, according to Reuters.
Maghrebi stresses that reporting on Morocco by Reuters is tainted by a special relationship between the news agency and Rabat and therefore cannot entirely back up what its correspondent, a Moroccan national, writes.
The announcement was made on November 25th by EU commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement Oliver Varhelyi, bringing the EU’s total Morocco earthquake aid in to 1 billion euros.
Morocco’s deadliest earthquake since the 1960s struck on September 8th last year, killing over 2,900 people and damaging swathes of critical infrastructure.
In the aftermath of the magnitude 6.8 Morocco earthquake, the country created an expensive reconstruction plan which included major upgrades to affected infrastructure over the next five years.
The news will be a relief to a few remaining victims in the Atlas region who, despite well over a year passing since the earthquake made international headlines, still have yet to be compensated and are still living in tents.
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While Varhelyi described Morocco as a “reliable” partner, receiving 5.2 billion euros in EU investments over the last five years, diplomatic relations between the two have become stained over a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice on the disputed Western Sahara region.
According to Maghrebi.org, Morocco slammed the court decision, that cancelled the EU’s fishing and agricultural deals with the country over products from Western Sahara, as “blatant political bias”, with foreign minister Nasser Bourita saying “there will be no partnerships at the expense of Morocco’s territorial integrity.”
Bourita added that Morocco-EU relations need to be protected from what he described as “judicial harassment”.
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According to the AP, Polisario Front’s representative to the United Nations and international organizations in Geneva, Oubi Bouchraya, welcomed the ruling.
Denouncing Spain and France’s recent recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, he said: “The court sent a legal strong message to the political power and mainly France and Spain, that Morocco and Western Sahara are distinct and separate territories, and that Morocco has no sovereignty over territory,”
The Algeria-back group has been fighting for independence in Western Sahara since Spanish withdrawal from the region in 1975.
However, in recent months Morocco’s bid to integrate the territory as a semi-autonomous state has gained significant traction, with approval from Spain and France.
Reuters, AP and Maghrebi.org
