Emmanuel Macron receives the King of Morocco Mohammed VI on 10 April 2018 in Paris. Christian Liewig/Press Association. All rights reserved.
Experts say EU-Morocco mutual stabilization strategy mostly benefits the regime in Morocco. Rabat is using its political relationship with Brussels as a strategy to credit and stabilize its regime, rather than as an opportunity to progress along the democratization path. And up to now Brussels has fully backed Morocco’s game of security and migration.
That is, at the expense of top priorities such as Europeanization of the Mediterranean southern shore and establishing a supranational power over member-states, including a protected non-member state such as Morocco. The EU, therefore, ought to review its policy. It ought to strike a balance between backing Moroccan top-down regionalization and supporting bottom-up Rifian regionalism. In particular, it ought to condition any likely Moroccan eligibility for European Structural Funds on the granting of autonomous rule to the Rif-region.
