European Commissioner Dubravka Šuica met Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita in Rabat on Thursday to discuss the forthcoming Pact for the Mediterranean, the EU’s new framework for cooperation with its southern neighbours.
Brussels says the Pact, due for adoption later this year, is designed to move beyond past initiatives and respond to urgent challenges such as migration, climate pressures and trade frictions.
The visit was Šuica’s first to Morocco since taking office in 2019 and comes as the EU seeks to show that the Pact can provide concrete mechanisms to manage disagreements and strengthen trust with a partner it calls strategic and reliable.
In a written response to questions from Hespress EN, Šuica outlined how the EU intends to translate the Pact into concrete cooperation with Morocco.
- Morocco is often described as a strategic and reliable partner for Europe. How will the Pact turn this recognition into concrete initiatives that reflect Morocco’s regional role and importance to the EU?
Morocco has one of the closest relationships with the EU in the Southern Neighbourhood, built on trust and long-standing cooperation. It is a key strategic partner in areas that matter greatly today: advancing renewable energy and the green transition, and boosting trade and investment, managing migration in a comprehensive way, strengthening security. At the same time, Morocco plays an important role as a bridge to cooperation with other partners in Africa.
All of this makes Morocco not only a strategic, but also a reliable partner. With the upcoming adoption of the Pact for the Mediterranean, we want to translate this recognition into concrete initiatives that reflect Morocco’s regional role and importance, while helping us tackle shared challenges and seize new opportunities together.
- Migration has long been central in EU–Morocco relations, yet the Pact’s first pillar is described as people-focused. How do you see this balance working in practice, between the EU’s security priorities and Moroccans’ aspirations for legal mobility, education, and development opportunities?
Our consultations on the Pact have identified three thematic pillars, and one of them is precisely about strengthening people-to-people ties. The idea is to put citizens, especially young people and small and medium enterprises, at the centre of our cooperation.This means delivering tangible opportunities: creating new jobs, expanding legal mobility, and developing a common space for higher education, culture, sport, and tourism. We want to invest in skills development, knowledge exchange, and academic mobility, so that young people can connect, learn, and build their futures with dignity.
In short, the Pact will both have migration management as a priority, including fighting migrant smuggling and preventing illegal migration, and opportunities for, mobility and skills development. That is how we turn shared challenges into shared progress.
- Morocco’s green transition is becoming tied to EU policy, with mechanisms such as the carbon border tax. What forms of cooperation, information-sharing, or support do you see under the Pact to ensure Morocco is not disadvantaged but strengthened in this process?
The Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable to climate change, and like the EU, Morocco is fully committed to the green transition, the decarbonisation of its economy, and building its resilience in particular through sustainable water management. I praise Morocco to have been the first country in the world with which the EU established a Green Partnership in October 2022. The EU is willing to build on it, particularly in the context of the upcoming Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy and Clean Tech initiative. We also see opportunities to work together on flagship projects such as the greening of the FIFA World Cup 2030, in areas like waste management, sustainable urban mobility, and smart infrastructure.
The aim is clear: we want Morocco to be strengthened as a leader in the green transition, benefiting its citizens and the wider region.
- Economic exchange has become a point of friction, with farmer protests in Europe over Moroccan products and Morocco’s grievances on agriculture and fisheries deals. How can the Pact or your initiatives turn these tensions into a framework for more sustainable and balanced trade?
The European Union is Morocco’s leading trade partner, with €60.6 billion euros in trade in goods in last year. We value our partnership and want to continue to expand it in a sustainable way. That means we have to listen to the needs and concerns of each other. This is exactly what we have done with the design of the Pact. We consulted our partners and will ensure that the Pact caters for the interests of both Morocco and the EU.
We want to ensure that trade agreements and economic exchanges in the region are balanced, transparent, and deliver tangible benefits. In bilateral relations we want to ensure predictability and stability. Pact will also help with this as it will include a mechanism of consultation on new EU regulations also with the partners in the South.
- Previous frameworks for the Mediterranean produced high hopes but limited results. With sensitive issues on the table across the region, what concrete mechanisms will prevent this Pact from following the same path and instead make it a tool for managing differences and reinforcing trust in the EU?
2025 is a pivotal year for Euro-Mediterranean relations. The Pact builds on past engagement but goes further, with a more integrated, coherent, and mutually beneficial approach. What makes it different from 30 years ago when we had the Barcelona Declaration is not only what we aim to achieve, but also how we are building it.
The novelty of the Pact is that it is being developed in full partnership, through open consultations. This is not a top-down initiative, but a shared endeavour. It will go beyond a political declaration. It will be backed by concrete, innovative actions and strong governance mechanisms to ensure follow-up, accountability, and delivery. This is essential to transform ambitions into tangible results and we will do this through the Action plan that will result from the Pact.
- Finally, is there any aspect of the Pact or of EU–Morocco relations that you feel deserves greater attention, or that you would like to emphasise beyond what we have discussed?
I would like to stress how important it is, in times of profound geo-strategic and economic uncertainty, to deepen our cooperation. This is not a choice; it is the only way forward. If I really have to single out one area, I would say it is the investment in people that we want to achieve through the Pact. Strengthening the core fabric of our society should be our main goal and this means supporting our youth in finding quality jobs is very important. Finally, I want to thank Morocco for its valuable contribution to the Pact.
We are united by a shared destiny and a common ambition to further strengthen our Common Mediterranean Space.
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