Address of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Rachid Talbi El Alami, at the Closure of the First Legislative Session of the 2021-2022 Legislative Year
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful; and may prayer and peace be upon his most noble Messenger;
Esteemed Minister,
Honorable Representatives,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We devote this plenary sitting to conclude the first session of the first legislative year of the Eleventh Legislative Term, at the level of plenary sittings, taking into consideration that the proceedings of the Standing Committees, the thematic groups, and parliamentary diplomacy will carry on.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We conclude this session in a context where our country continues, under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God glorify him, to entrench its regional, continental, and international positioning as a credible, trustworthy international partner and a regional stability pole that engages in constructing peace and coexistence.
Supported by this amount of international trust in its choices and policies, our country continues to diversify its partnerships and gather the support of the international community for the legitimacy of its territorial integrity. Such a support was reflect in the latest UN Security Council resolution linked to the question of our southern provinces where goes on the implementation of leading and structuring development projects with the engagement of our brothers and sisters of the provinces and their political, civil, and economic elites, in a patriotic and solidarity spirit that translates their constant readiness to defend the country’s land and borders, where the Royal Armed Forces are standing strong as a wall against which the obsolete secession delusions are broken. To these forces and their Supreme Commander and Chief of General Staff, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, our sincere gratitude, esteem, and respect.
Honorable colleagues,
If this sitting is usually dedicated to reviewing the institution's performance and looking forward to future works, this session specifically did not only inaugurate a new legislative term, but also launched a new phase of our institutional life, following the formation of a new government emanating from the ballot boxes of the elections that took place on September 8, 2021.
We must all in the Kingdom of Morocco be proud of winning the challenge of regularity and smoothness of institutional processes, achieved thanks to the keenness of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God glorify him and assist him, to enable our country to renew its institutions in respect of the provisions of the Constitution and to preserve our institutional model, despite the challenging context where COVID-19 reigns over the various life aspects in all countries.
As much as we should be proud of our country's accumulation of these institutional successes, and its smart management of the pandemic and its repercussions, as much as this puts a heavy burden of responsibility on our shoulders in the House of Representatives, mainly in fulfilling our constitutional, institutional, and representative duties with a quality that rises to the current challenges and to the stakes of strengthening our country's position as an emerging democratic power given its deep-rooted history.
In the exercise of our various prerogatives, we drew upon the tenor of the Royal speech addressed by His Majesty, may God glorify him, in the opening of the legislative session. We also took into consideration the challenges that face our country and the stakes of the new phase.
In this respect, His Majesty the King emphasized three main dimensions of priority, firs, mainly:
First: Entrenching Morocco’s position, defending its highest interest, and ensuring national sovereignty by providing the strategic stock of vital good;
Second: Managing the pandemic crisis and addressing its repercussions. In this respect, we seize the opportunity at the House of Representatives to express our pride of the launch by His Majesty last week of the works of construction of a laboratory to produce anti-covid19 vaccines and other vaccines, which is a strategic edifice for the vaccine sovereignty of the Kingdom and Africa. It is another token of the strength and wisdom of the leadership by His Majesty the King of Morocco amidst a highly challenging global context.
The third dimension emphasized by His Majesty the King relates to the implementation of the New Development Model as an open general framework, given the broad working horizons it offers to the government and the Parliament and the responsibilities it entrusts to political, economic, technical, and cultural elites.
Recalling this Royal vision, we had to speed up the formation of the bodies that run proceedings of the House, which was achieved according to a work program imposed by the context and the societal aspirations.
Allow me, honorable colleagues, to recall that the speediness and smoothness in the formation of the House bodies in less than one week after His Majesty the King's inauguration of the legislative session is an achievement and a tradition owed to all the House components who facilitated the process and engaged in it with a high political and patriotic spirit. This proves the maturity of our political parties system, which is based on consensus in big moments and avoidance of conflict that characterizes some other democracies.
The election of these bodies facilitated the initiation of our control actions by hearing, discussing, and voting on the government program presented by the Head of Government before the Parliament on Monday, October 11, 2021, and granting the Government confidence in due course.
The discussion of the government program represented a crucial and essential institutional and political moment. It was an occasion for a fruitful democratic debate and dialogue between the legislative and executive branches, to which contributed the parliamentary Opposition and the Majority, reflecting the distinctiveness of our institutional model.
After that, the House started the discussion of the 2022 Finance Bill, which is a necessary mechanism for State interventions and the implementation of public policies. The discussion took place in full compliance with the constitutional and legislative deadlines.
The discussion of the Finance Bill was, in fact, an occasion for a thorough discussion and a fruitful interaction between the legislative and executive branches, which both enriched the public debate on a set of vital issues for our country, and contributed to the improvement of the provisions contained in the said Bill. The latter was enriched by the amendments made in its text, 32% of which were agreed upon, following a deep discussion within the Finance Committee.
The smoothness of our parliamentary work reflects the cooperation between the legislative and executive branches and the collective will to rationalize the management of political and parliamentary time as a crucial factor in the development process and in meeting the expectations of the public opinion, taking into account its choices, invoking the pressing challenges that require decisive and concrete responses, and orienting our joint efforts to address the core issues of society. With that being said, if this achievement is to the credit of both the parliamentary Opposition and Majority, the winner remains our country.
Honorable colleagues,
With the imminent closing of the first session of the Eleventh Legislative Term, we followed together some assessments of the legislative achievement of the Parliament during the first hundred days of the legislative and executive branches in office.
In this respect, while I am convinced that I am not in the proper position to defend the government’s record and performance, I, still, in my capacity as Speaker of the House of Representatives, with its Opposition and Majority, should, or rather must share with you some clarifications and facts that may help us in initiating a constructive critical discourse regarding the public performance, based on objectivity, impartiality and acknowledgment of history, so that any assessments or findings may serve as a useful instruments in enhancing performance and motivating diligence.
Concerning the first fact, and for the sake of truth and history and with reference to the last legislative terms, the pace of legislation during this session was no less rapid than what was recorded in the memory of the Moroccan Parliament. In this respect, we approved 17 texts, noting that the Finance Bill usually takes the most significant part of legislation during the first sessions.
Moreover, we should recall the importance of the legislative initiatives led by the House members, as the number of parliamentary bills received up to yesterday, Tuesday, reached 69. We will be keen in the House bodies to subject the legislative initiatives of the House members to the procedures in force, in compliance with the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure, and in respect of the right of members to take part in the legislation process, based on our belief in their importance in the development of national legislation.
The second fact is that in the new parliamentary cultures and practices in countries with long-standing democratic traditions, parliaments have become more inclined to control government work, evaluate public policies, their performance, effectiveness and impact, and follow up the implementation of laws and assess their impact. Such practices also find their place in the Moroccan parliamentary practice, especially during both the previous legislative term and current legislative session, as I will explain later.
The third fact is that during this session, the House of Representatives was a platform for debate and exchange on the main timely questions in our national context, either within the Standing Committees, in the exercise of their powers of control, or during plenary sittings. We should be proud that this debate, enriched by the Opposition, Majority and the Government, placed the expectations of society and the daily issues of citizens at the heart of the concerns of the House of Representatives, which must constantly respond to these expectations, since the appropriate spaces to deliberate on these expectations and to find solutions to society’s issues are the institutions, and among them, of course, the legislative institution, in order to strengthen confidence in it.
If the purpose of our parliamentary production is the quality and impact of the legislation, and the interaction of the legislative institution with the issues of society, in the exercise of the competence of control and evaluation, then a reading of the themes that were the focal points of the House’s control within the Standing Committees, as well as during plenary sittings, shows a general tendency to examine current social issues. These issues included:
1) the projects aimed at strengthening the foundations of the social State and improving health services in relation to the pandemic and COVID-19;
2) education;
3) employment;
4) justice;
5) sectors affected by the persistence of the pandemic, such as tourism and culture;
6) Agriculture and the rural world, in relation to water and the poor rainfall.
The selection of these themes, which amounted to more than 40 in the Committees, took into consideration the suggestions of both the Majority and the Opposition. The number of questions discussed in the form of axes with the Head of the Government during the monthly sittings devoted to general policy amounted to ten, while the number of oral questions answered by the Government members in 13 sittings was 276, of which 131 were timely. The number of written questions reached 2019.
Honorable colleagues,
As the Board of the House of Representatives and the Chairpersons of the Parliamentary Groups and Caucus, we were keen to accelerate the agreement on the public policies that should be evaluated in the 2021-2022 legislative year according to Article 70 of the Constitution. Therefore, to consolidate this parliamentary competence and engage, as the House, in the vision of His Majesty, we opted for a multisectoral evaluation process that will tackle the public policies related to the public administration reform plan, the Green Morocco Plan and the water policy.
Such policies are of significant timeliness in the national and geopolitical contexts and are at the heart of the vital challenges of the 21st century.
The agreement on the evaluation of the outcomes of the public administration reform plan was part of implementing the provisions of the Constitution, which stipulates the necessity of "subjecting the public services to the norms of quality, transparency, accountability, and responsibility." Our choice was also built upon the directives and vision of His Majesty the King, may God assist him, as a political reference. In this respect, His Majesty has always stressed his keenness to “Constitutionally enshrine good governance as an indispensable principle for the organization and management of the civil service since it involves the principles of merit, integrity, transparency, and equal opportunity among all Moroccans." (End of citation of His Majesty the King)
We launched this evaluation process in order to face up to several challenges, including:
1- Public services should serve citizens and economic actors and facilitate investment. In this respect, we recalled the call of His Majesty King Mohammed VI to "put public service at the heart of the New Development Model via a thorough and profound reform of the public administration;"
2- Access to public services must be transparent and democratic, considering that it is a citizen's right;
3- Public administrations must be modernized, digitalized and put at the heart of the development dynamic, and their performance must answer the needs of society in the 21st century. We must also utilize the global digital revolution and its gains.
Additionally, the choice of the Green Morocco Plan as a second policy to be evaluated by the House of Representatives is part of the vision of His Majesty the King, who emphasized, in his speech on the opening of the first legislative session of the ongoing legislative term, "the need to set up an integrated national system to manage the strategic reserve stock of essential goods and products, especially in the areas of food, health, and energy. In this regard, our national needs should be regularly updated in order to enhance the country's strategic security."
The Green Morocco Plan, its outcomes, and its impacts are directly linked to food security, which, as you all know, occupies a central position amongst the present and future geopolitical questions and is of great importance in charting the world map and determining the authority of States, their negotiating power, the independence of their decisions, and their capabilities.
If our country has pride in its long-standing agricultural traditions, it is today a growing green power and a source of food for Moroccans and several nations with whom it shares its bounties and experiences.
The evaluation of the Green Morocco Plan will automatically drive us to evaluate our water policies in terms of mobilization, usage, the means devoted to that effect, and the prospects and mechanisms for ensuring our water security, considering it a part of our strategic and food security and given that the provision of water is a challenge to the nations, as even the most optimistic strategic theories do not exclude water conflicts from the list of the reasons behind regional tensions and conflicts and the internal disputes in States.
Ladies and gentlemen,
At the level of external relations, the components and bodies of the House continued their mobilization based on vigilance and anticipation, and following the national diplomatic credo, in favor of our vital causes, foremost of which is the cause of our territorial integrity, at the bilateral and multilateral levels.
Hence, the House took part in the 143rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which took place in Madrid in November 2021. Our participation was an opportunity where we, and the members of the national parliamentary representation, held talks with our counterparts from the five continents.
The House also took part in the Conference of the African Parliamentary Union, the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Assembly and the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie. These participations by the House of Representatives were an occasion to emphasize the interests of our country, shed light on the reforms it is conducting, and to defend peace, stability, and climate justice.
As an appreciation for its founding and qualitative contribution in the Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary mechanisms, we have assumed, since January 2022, the presidency of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean. The latter is the parliamentary wing of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, in which our country occupies an esteemed and critical position.
We were also keen to set the structure of the national parliamentary representations at the multilateral organizations and formulated a new conception of the structure of the parliamentary friendship groups in cooperation and coordination with our colleagues from the House of Councilors.
As part of diversifying the international partnership and cooperation programs, the House consolidated its partnership with the European Union, several national European parliaments and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In this respect, the House approved a new institutional twinning project funded by the European Union with seven European legislative institutions. These institutions include the National Assembly of France, the Czech House of Representatives, the Belgian House of Representatives, the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the Hellenic Parliament, the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal and the National Assembly of Hungary.
This twinning is a token of trust and friendship. It also illustrates the will to cooperate between our House and the European national parliaments and complements other cooperation programs with institutions from the Anglophone sphere, including the United States. The twinning project will also facilitate dialogue with these partners and the exchange of expertise, experiences, study missions, and parliamentary practices.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Apart from the suspension of plenary sittings, we will pursue our activities at the level of the Standing Committees, the thematic working groups in charge of evaluating public and other policies, parliamentary diplomacy, as well as the projects we launched, including the amendment of the Rules of Procedure of the House.
We will also continue the constructive and effective dialogue between the House bodies and political components to prepare for the next session, whose agenda we expect to be rich, especially concerning legislation.
In the meantime, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who contributed to the achievements we attained during this session, especially the Head of the Government and its members and the House components from the Majority and the Opposition. To all these, thank you for facilitating the works of the House and for your valuable contribution to enriching them, which is a reflection of our collective engagement in the process of development, consolidation of the foundations of institutions and democracy, and our unity around His Majesty the King, may God assist him, to overcome the challenges and achieve our goals.
I also want to thank the executives and personnel of the House for their efforts, the police officers, the members of the Royal Armed Forces and the firefighters seconded to the House for their constant mobilization to provide an adequate atmosphere for our works. I want to seize this opportunity to also extend my gratitude to the personnel in charge of hygiene and distribution for their constant assistance and the press and media for their coverage, analysis, commentary, and criticism of the works of the House.
Thank you for your keen listening.