Publications /
Research Paper

Back
Has Morocco Benefited from the Free Trade Agreement with the European Union?
February 19, 2020

Since the free trade agreement (FTA) between Morocco and the European Union (EU) came into force nearly two decades ago, Morocco’s export performance on EU markets has been less than stellar and the trade deficit with the EU has surged. This has led many observers to take a negative view of the agreement. Yet, bilateral trade balances are not the best way to assess the effects of a trade agreement, and Morocco has derived major benefits in other ways. As they progress on negotiations towards a more comprehensive and deeper relationship, both Morocco and the EU have much work to do to make the agreement work even better for Moroccans. This Policy Paper presents an assessment of the EU-Morocco FTA and outlines some policy implications, focusing not only on trade flows between the two partners, but also on Foreign Direct Investment, regional integration, and the impact on Moroccan importers and consumers.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    François Gaulme
    July 20, 2018
    This paper aims to highlight both the financial, economic and political adjustment cycle, affecting two Central African petro-states, Gabon and the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville). These two countries, linked by their rentier economic system and their common colonial history, have nevertheless experienced different political fates after independence, with the former maintaining a special relationship with France, while the latter quickly opted for Marxism. In the 1980s and 199 ...
  • Authors
    Sabine Cessou
    July 20, 2018
    Lors d’un séminaire, organisé par l’OCP Policy Center, le 20 juin 2018, à Rabat, des experts du jihad dans le Sahel se sont posé la question de l’extension ou du recul de ces groupes armés. La première partie du compte-rendu des discussions a été publiée ici. Selon Lemine Ould Salem, journaliste mauritanien et auteur de plusieurs livres sur le terrorisme dans le Sahel, « il n’existe pas historiquement de jihad sahélien, même si des épisodes historiques du jihad se sont déroulés sur ...
  • Authors
    July 19, 2018
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan was humming and he had reason to feel joyful. His people had entrusted him with reforming their constitution, which would give him more power, incredible power. Possibly, he could realize his dream after all, the revival of the Ottoman Empire. Such Turkish power last seen in the era of Osman I at the end of the 13th century in northern Anatolia. A neo-Ottoman, is it a vision of a megalomaniac? Would Saudi Arabia ever be willing to be ruled by a Turk? A Turk who ...
  • Authors
    Mokhtar Ghailani
    July 13, 2018
    Les participants aux travaux de la Conférence annuelle du réseau EuroMesco, autour du thème « Un regard nouveau sur les relations euro-méditerranéennes », co-organisée par l’OCP Policy Center et l’Institut Européen de la Méditerranée IEMed, à Rabat, les 12 et 13 juillet 2018, ont été unanimes à faire leur le constat selon lequel la situation qui prévaut dans l’espace euro-méditerranéen, les rives nord et sud confondues, est prédominée par des tensions et des défis.  Tout au long de ...
  • Authors
    July 11, 2018
    Who would cry because a whale has died, thrown onto a beach somewhere on our globe by a giant wave, the noble mammal ceasing to breathe through its blowhole in the head. No news on television, possibly a note on the third page of a local newspaper. Eight billion humans, most struggling to survive themselves, will never know or care. A pilot whale has died in Southern Thailand, after consuming more than eighty black plastic bags? A sperm whale discovered dead on a beach of Spain, who ...
  • Authors
    July 10, 2018
    Historians often offer different interpretations of the events that have shaped our destiny, yet, with respect to World War 2, the bloodiest conflict in history, they seem to concur on two points. First, that those yearning for peace underestimated the National Socialists’ determination to wage a war of conquest until it was far too late to deter them, and, second, that Nazi Germany failed to anticipate that Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union – each of which it provok ...