Marruecos toma el relevo para presidir el ‘Proceso de Rabat’ en 2023
More than fifty African and European countries - of which 28 were representatives of African states and 29 of European states - met on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 December in the Spanish city of Cadiz to reaffirm their commitment to the 'Rabat Process' (also known as the 'Euro-African Dialogue on Migration and Development').
Thus, the meeting, the 6th Conference of the Rabat Process at ministerial level, served not only to celebrate the handover of the presidency from Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spanish Minister of the Interior and president of the Euro-African dialogue forum for the last year, to Younes Sekkouri, Minister of Economic Inclusion of the Kingdom of Morocco, but also for the 57 States attending to sign the Political Declaration of Cadiz and the Cadiz Action Plan. These two documents include the 10 objectives that the member countries will have to develop between 2023 and 2027, as well as the 29 actions through which they will carry them out.
The Action Plan, drawn up during the Spanish presidency, is a "road map" approved with "the conviction that the countries cannot face the complex global challenge posed by the migratory phenomenon unilaterally", said Grande-Marlaska during his speech, stressing that "mutual trust" between the countries from which migratory movements start, through which they pass, and to which they are directed, is key to "being able to carry out daily operational work".
"The Rabat Process must be supported and strengthened, because the reasons for its creation are still valid", the Spanish minister concluded. "And there are no shortcuts, cooperation is not built overnight.
For his part, the recently appointed president of the forum, the Moroccan minister Younes Sekkouri, highlighted the great commitment of Rabat - as well as the rest of the member states - to the fulfilment of the documents adopted in Cadiz. Sekkouri explained that, during its presidency, Morocco intends to "reconstruct" a "new narrative of migration" and of "the stereotypes that undermine" policies to address this phenomenon.
"We still have a lot to do," Sekkouri said, encouraging European and African countries to work together to analyse in depth the dynamics affecting migratory movements and to, in the Moroccan minister's own words, "ensure that the diaspora in Europe plays an important role for both countries of origin and destination".
The Rabat Process, or Euro-African Dialogue on Migration and Development, was born in 2006 as a forum for dialogue and cooperation to address the challenges and opportunities that migratory phenomena generate. Especially in a world where, according to the 'World Migration Report 2022' of the UN's International Organisation for Migration, migration has grown from 192 million people to more than 280 million in just 15 years.
The forum brings together 57 countries from Europe and West, Central and North Africa, together with representatives of the European Commission and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and has so far met on almost twenty occasions - including six ministerial-level conferences - with international organisations, members of civil society and representatives of the academic world, to try to address migration phenomena from as many different points of view as possible.
The four pillars on which the work of the Rabat Process has revolved since its inception are the organisation of legal migration, the strengthening of border management and the fight against irregular migration, the strengthening of international synergies in migration and development, and the promotion of international protection.