The European Union has decided to increase its economic support to Morocco to reinforce the new strategy of the government of Rabat in its efforts to stem the clandestine immigration in transit to the territories of member states. The Commission recently communicated the allocation of a fund of over 30 million Euros, in the form of “Emergency Programme”, aimed to cover various activities: improvement of the legislative framework, institutional reinforcement and the boosting of the resources at the disposal of the Ministry of the Interior for frontier surveillance, modernization of fixed frontier posts, training to increase investigative skills, and information to potential immigrants. With an additional 2.5 million euros allocated for technical assistance and programme management, the overall budget of the programme of cooperation with Morocco “Management of frontier control” now amounts to 67.625 millions, half of which already spent or committed by the local authorities over the last four years. In recognition of the progress made by Morocco in its crack down on clandestine immigration, the EU Commissioner for external relations and neighbourhood policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner expressed the hope that “3% of the funds allocated to countries of the neighbourhood area would be dedicated to questions of immigration”.
