“Morocco is the first link, the first anchor of this progressive integration” towards which Euro-African cooperation is tending, Valenciano stressed in a tribuna under the title “What if our future passed through the South?”, published Saturday in the newspaper El País.
“Morocco is undoubtedly one of the countries with which we have the deepest neighborhood cooperation. And rightly so, because it is often in Rabat that the strategies of the Euro-Mediterranean space are shaped, as well as the de facto interdependence that links our destinies with Africa,” explained the former Socialist spokeswoman in the Spanish Congress of Deputies.
“The European Union was built on shared values to which Morocco is no stranger. The difference in culture does not always correspond to a difference of choice or conviction,” added Valenciano, before pointing out that, on the contrary, “with Morocco, otherness often finds ways to regularly enrich the shores of the Mediterranean with the same ambition: that of moving forward together and that a mutual interest prevails, without any doubt whatsoever.”
“The contexts have changed and with them the balance and dynamics governing the diplomatic vocation of our Union”, he estimated before specifying that “the multiplication of the challenges we face justifies a review of the cooperation frameworks, to reinforce both their scope and their content”.
“With Morocco, we have, perhaps more than ever, the opportunity to innovate, to set an example and to give new impetus to the meaning of history,” Valenciano said.
