Officials from Spain and Morocco met this Wednesday in Madrid, at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, within the framework of the Spanish-Moroccan Joint Commission, to promote coordination in the preparation of Operation Paso del Angol 2023 (OPE 23).
The meeting served to concretize the details of the Special Plan of Civil Protection for the OPE 23, which will be closed in the coming weeks, and in which all the aspects necessary for the development of the device will be collected.
On the Spanish side, the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Isabel Goicoechea; the Director General of Civil Protection and Emergencies, Leonardo Marcos; the Director General of Coordination and Studies of the Secretary of State for Security, José Antonio Rodríguez; and the Director General of Traffic, Pere Navarro, participated in the meeting.
Representatives of the Directorate-General for the Maghreb, the Mediterranean and the Middle East of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation, the Directorate-General for Merchant Shipping and State Ports, the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, and representatives of other ministerial departments have also attended.
On the Moroccan side, the Moroccan Ambassador to Spain, Karima Benyaich, the Director of Migration and Border Surveillance of Morocco, Khalid Zerouali, as well as senior officials of the General Directorate of National Security and the Royal Gendarmerie and representatives of different ministries of the North African country have attended.
OPERATING DEVICES
The joint committee has also addressed, among other issues, the operational devices that both countries are going to implement to ensure the development of WEP-23, which will be similar to those established in last year’s. In 2022, the Ministry of the Interior re-established a security device of 15,995 National Police and Civil Guard officers.
The measures being studied by the civil protection authorities of Spain and Morocco will ensure various objectives, among which the fluidity and safety of transit, assistance to passengers and prevention and protection of public health stand out.
In addition, the meeting has put in common the fleet plans that must guarantee an adequate offer to the daily traffic of passengers and vehicles. The reinforcements of troops that will be mobilized in the ports to guarantee transit, both from Europe to Africa and back in the second phase of OPP-23, have also been addressed.
Finally, both countries have agreed on the strengthening and coordination of information exchange channels to continue working on aspects such as the management of the days of greatest influx, the possibility of exchange of tickets and other conditions of sea crossings.