Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Mariya Gabriel: Bulgaria and Morocco will work for a new dynamic and development of the partnership between the two countries
11 January 2024 News
On 10 — 11 January, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariya Gabriel paid a working visit to the Kingdom of Morocco. The visit is the first by a Bulgarian Foreign Minister to Morocco in 10 years and is at the invitation of H.E. Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Living Abroad. The Bulgarian delegation, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, included Krastyu Krastev, Minister of Culture.
Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel held meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Living Abroad, H. E. Nasser Bourita, with the President of the House of Representatives of the Moroccan Parliament, Rachid Talbi Alami, and with King Mohammed VI's advisor, André Azoulay.
Within the framework of the working visit, a Joint Statement outlining specific areas for deepening bilateral relations and a Three-Year Programme for Cooperation in Education, Higher Education, Research, Culture, Communication, Youth and Sport were signed. An Agreement for co-production and cinematographic exchange was also signed, on the basis of which a number of initiatives will be held, such as a week of Bulgarian cinema in Morocco and Moroccan cinema in Bulgaria.
After the bilateral meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel and Minister Nasser Bourita made a joint statement to the media. Deputy Prime Minister Gabriel thanked for the invitation and stressed that Bulgaria and Morocco are traditional partners that maintain an active dialogue, centred on mutual respect and common interests. She congratulated Morocco on its election to the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) for 2024, whose candidacy Bulgaria supported, as well as on the occasion of the 79th anniversary of the declaration of the manifesto for independence of the Kingdom of Morocco.
‘Friendship, trust, potential for development, these are the messages I sent’, Mariya Gabriel said . ‘Bulgaria and Morocco will work for new dynamics and development of the partnership between the two countries,’ the Deputy Prime Minister said. ‘We united around the needs for 4 areas of cooperation — economy, education and culture, security and fight against illegal migration, shared values. The most important thing for us, however, is the human contact — between people, between our nations on the basis of culture, education, youth and sport, through which we can develop the potential of our relations’, Gabriel added.
She highlighted one of the important outcomes of the meeting — political consultations on the identified areas of cooperation will start in 2024. The Deputy Prime Minister also noted the importance of Morocco's cooperation with the EU. ‘Both Bulgaria and Morocco have the ambition to be leaders of stability in their regions’, Mariya Gabriel was adamant.
She expressed confidence that the agreements signed during the visit will contribute to the development of the partnership between Bulgaria and Morocco and will bring benefits to the citizens of both countries.
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