European Parliament
George Lyon  (ALDE ),
in writing.
– I voted in favour of granting consent to the agreement between the EU and Morocco on reciprocal liberalisation measures on agricultural and fisheries products on Thursday, 16 February 2012 as I believe that, on balance, it will bring new opportunities for European States exporting to Morocco. I continue to have reservations as regards the human rights situation in Western Sahara and I hope that this agreement will be beneficial for the people in this region. On balance, given the current political situation in the Kingdom of Morocco and the southern Mediterranean area, I believe that the EU should strengthen its trade relations with these countries in order to improve the local populations’ economic situation and well-being, especially in primary sectors such as fisheries and agriculture. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that this agreement represents only a marginal opening of the market for sensitive EU agricultural products such as tomatoes (statistically, the extra 52 000 tonnes of tomatoes allowed to enter the EU tariff-free only represent 0.65% of the EU’s current tomato production).

