The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, alleged this Tuesday «technical problems» still to be resolved to justify the failed attempt to reopen, last Wednesday the 8th, the commercial customs between Melilla and Morocco. Albares admitted that both administrations hoped to make the opening official that day with a first commercial exchange, which ultimately failed when the Moroccan authorities prevented the passage of the merchandise.
“There is still work to do by both customs to be able to definitively solve any technical problem that may exist,” argued the Foreign Minister in his first public statement about what happened. But the minister’s explanations have not alleviated the doubts of the autonomous city government. “The technical reasons at this point in the film are already fine,” the president of Melilla, Juan José Imbroda (PP), reproached this Tuesday.
The popular leader has criticized in an interview on RNE the lack of information from the Government regarding the reopening and the next dates that the executives of Spain and Morocco are contemplating to take this first official step. In Imbroda’s opinion, “it is completely ignoring or the city government is being despisedin the sense of having some contact, some information.
The president of Melilla has gone further by doubting the true intentions of Morocco, which at the beginning of this month of January agreed with the Government of Pedro Sánchez to reopen the commercial customs office in Melilla and launch the one in Ceuta. After two years and eight months of negotiations, the neighboring country could thus introduce its products into the autonomous city and, in exchange, it would allow a truck with a specific merchandise to pass from Melilla, with prior authorization from the Moroccan authorities.
“What I understand is that Morocco does not want that the commercial customs that existed in Melilla be reopened and the one that did not exist in Ceuta is put in place,” Imbroda questioned, once the first exchange attempt (a van transporting small appliances, refrigerators and kitchenware) was thwarted by the neighboring country.
He ignores the specific motivations of the Moroccan Executive, although he speculates that it may respond to a Rabat strategy to «bore, suffocate and disappoint». “There will be a mix of political and economic reasons, but they are very comfortable if Melilla and Ceuta are more economically suffocated,” said the president of Melilla, while reiterating: “This is a turn of the screw to suffocate economically.”
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