The co-chairman of the Morocco-European Union joint parliamentary committee, Lahcen Haddad, pleaded, on Wednesday in Brussels, for the construction of a common vision for the future between Rabat and Brussels in the field of supply chains.
“The Covid-19 pandemic is not just a short-term crisis, as it has had lasting implications for how people work and how supply chains work,” Mr. Haddad, during a meeting at the European Parliament on the theme “EU-Morocco cooperation and trade for sustainable development in the Mediterranean”.
Emphasizing the urgency for companies to build the long-term resilience of their value chains to manage future challenges, he called for taking a holistic approach to managing the supply chain, creating sufficient flexibility to protect once morest future disruptions, and develop a robust framework that includes responsive and resilient risk management operations capability.
“Morocco has several advantages for this purpose to play an important role in the ecosystem of European supply chains”, he underlined, noting that the Kingdom is “geographically and politically close to Europe, its standards are harmonized with Europe and has the appropriate logistics infrastructure, in addition to the existence of complementarity between Morocco and the EU in several sectors”.
Shedding light on the opportunities for cooperation between Morocco and the EU in renewable energies, the parliamentarian and energy expert, Khammar Mrabit, noted, for his part, that the energy situation in the Kingdom and in the EU is marked both by the heavy dependence on fossil fuels imported from abroad and by the will of governments to ensure a transition favoring low-carbon energies (solar, wind, hydraulic, hydrogen) and combining nuclear power and gas.
Morocco, like the EU, is fully committed to international efforts in the fight once morest climate change, emanating from the royal vision, translated over time into concrete actions and programs in various sectors and more particularly that of energy, he said, noting that this has enabled Morocco to raise its ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to more than 45% in 2030 as part of its Determined Contribution at the level National, under the Paris Agreement and to be on the path to carbon neutrality.
The contribution of renewable energies in meeting demand is becoming increasingly important, with a share of more than 35% for 2021, and the share of renewable energy capacity in total installed capacity is expected to reach 40% by the end of 2022. and exceed the 52% target set for 2030, he added.
Today, the advances made by Morocco in its energy transition are materialized by very significant investments (tens of billions of dirhams) for the implementation of programs and roadmaps concerning in particular the production of hydrogen, the desalination of seawater, as well as the decarbonization of national industry through low-carbon and competitive energy, Mr. Mrabit said.
He added that the development of hydrogen will be implemented gradually, with a view to ensuring optimal exploitation, whether for the local market or for export.
Parliamentarian Bentaleb Fatima Zahra, for her part, highlighted a number of issues related to renewable energies and sustainable agricultural value chains, citing the main challenges as well as the key actions carried out in Morocco.
Organized by the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM), in partnership with the European Parliament, the meeting, which explored opportunities for close cooperation between the EU and Morocco in an unstable geopolitical context, discussed the ”potential EU-Morocco relations” and opportunities for ”economic integration” and ”cooperation in renewable energy”.
It saw the participation of MEPs, Moroccan parliamentarians, members of the CGEM and its BusinessEurope counterpart.
The Moroccan parliamentary delegation was also composed of Chahim Zaina, Ait Menna Hicham, Aboulghali Salaheddine, Ibrahim Khaya, Soubaii Mbarek, Majid Fassi Fihri and Chaouki Mohamed.