Recommendations on Human Rights for the New Morocco/EU Action Plan in the framework of the Advanced Status

The current Morocco/EU Action Plan will expire in July 2010

Towards an Effective Roadmap for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Morocco

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Executive Summary

The current Morocco/EU Action Plan, adopted five years ago under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), will expire in July 2010. The Action Plan represents a significant political commitment and includes a number of objectives related to democracy, the rule of law and the promotion of human rights, fundamental freedoms and women’s rights. Morocco is also the first member of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (now the Union for the Mediterranean) to give tangible form to its deepening of relations with the EU under the ENP by adopting a joint document on strengthening bilateral relations/ advanced status in October 2008.

The EMHRN believes that democratic reforms and respect for human rights must be an essential objective in the framework of a Morocco/EU Advanced Status based on common values.

Most of the objectives related to democratic reforms and human rights that were jointly agreed to in the current ENP Action Plan have yet to be achieved, as noted in the European Commission’s annual progress reports and the reports of national and international human rights NGOs.

In view of the negotiations that are taking place on the next ENP Action Plan, the EMHRN, in partnership with its member organisations in Morocco – Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM), Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH), Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humains (OMDH) and Espace Associatif – has developed a set of general recommendations on monitoring mechanisms and the role of civil society in the context of Morocco-EU relations, as well as thematic recommendations focused on the following areas: democratic reforms and fundamental freedoms; justice; women’s rights and gender equality; migrant and refugee rights; economic, social and cultural rights.

The EMHRN calls upon the European Union and the government of Morocco to take into consideration these recommendations and urges that the objectives set out in them be included in the next Action Plan or in any new general agreement between the EU and Morocco, in order for them to serve as an effective roadmap for the protection and promotion of human rights in Morocco.

The EMHRN emphasises that the following should be explicitly affirmed in the next Morocco/EU Action Plan:

1.    Human rights and the political reforms needed to implement them, as a priority objective and key condition in the strengthening of bilateral relations between Morocco and the EU;
2.    The universal and indivisible nature of human rights, including civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights;
3.    An effective mainstreaming of respect for human rights, and for the gender dimension, in the implementation of all Morocco/EU policies, programmes and cooperation projects, including in such areas as terrorism, migrations, and economic and trade cooperation.

Given the ambitious nature of the goals and commitments related to human rights, the implementation of Morocco/EU policies, to be effective, will require that human rights NGOs be involved from the outset in developing the objectives of the next Action Plan and that their recommendations be taken into account. Indeed, the EMHRN stresses the essential role that NGOs must play in the strengthening of Morocco-EU relations in order to achieve concrete reforms and have an effective impact on the human rights situation in Morocco.