Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita has refused any action from the European Union to outsource migrant reception centers to Morocco, emphasizing that this suggestion is an “easy solution.”
Criticizing the suggestion, the Moroccan official said that his country “rejects and has always rejected these kinds of methods for managing the issue of migration flows.”
Bourita made his remarks after meeting Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Josep Borrell.
According to Bourita, such measures cannot solve the issue of migrants, describing the moves as “easy solutions” and “counterproductive.”
The number of migrants using the sea route from Morocco to Spain more than tripled between 2016 and 1017.
In his statement to the press, Bourita said that the issue of reception centers of migration will be discussed at the European summit on migration, which opened on June 28 in Brussels, Belgium.
Bourita also saluted the Morocco-Spanish cooperation model in managing migratory flows, describing it as an “exemplary.”
While some sub-Saharan migrants chose to travel through Morocco to reach Europe, some have also chosen the North African country as a destination instead.
In May, Morocco’s National Committee in Charge of Monitoring Immigrant Regularization announced that the country is taking measures to regularize over 24,000 undocumented migrants.
In his most recent speech on the issue, King Mohammed VI called on the international community and African nations to increase efforts to address the issue of migration in Africa.
AFP reported that 12,155 people have arrived in Spain in 2018, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The report revealed that 292 people died while attempting to reach Spain.
AFP estimated that 1,000 were killed in the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach Europe in 2018.
