Highlights

The twelfth session of the economic dialogue between Morocco and the European Union was held at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, November 11th, 2014. This session was co-chaired by Mrs. Fawzia ZAABOUL, Director of Treasury and External Finance, and Mr. Andreas PAPADOPOULOS, Deputy Head of Unit at the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission.

Took part in this session representatives of the European Commission and the Delegation of the European Union in Rabat, Bank Al Maghrib, the High Commissioner for Planning, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and the Directorate of budget of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Opening the sessions’ discussions, Mrs.ZAABOUL welcomed the continuous deepening of bilateral cooperation between Morocco and the European Union and the regularity of the Economic Dialogue meetings that provide opportunity to exchange information on macroeconomic, fiscal and monetary policies, as well as on statistics area, with the aim of strengthening and deepening economic cooperation between the two parties.

She noted that the 12th Session is of particular importance since it comes after the signing of the Morocco - EU agreement on the unique support framework for 2014-2017 which devotes a financial allocation to Morocco up to € 890m.

She also stressed that the strengthening of the dialogue between the two parties on economic issues includes achieving the objective set by the advanced status of establishing a common economic zone between the EU and Morocco, and ratified by the adoption in December 2013 of the action Plan to implement the advanced status.

In this context, Ms. ZAABOUL recalled the commitments on the financial dimension of the advanced Status so as to take a further step for access to adequate community financial resources to support Morocco in the EU logic of regional and cohesion policy and the adoption of new implementation procedures.

In this respect, she stressed that these commitments will support Morocco in accelerating its economic development model which showed its resilience to external shocks related to the world economic and financial crisis.

The Director of Treasury and External Finance also expressed the wish to strengthen this exchange, held once a year, through technical cooperation and capacity building in the fields concerned.