In December 2019, the European Union adopted an ambitious Green Deal, which has since been broken down into sectoral strategies. Morocco, for its part, has already made sustainable development and environmental protection a national priority for several years. In Morocco, the EU is already implementing a wide range of cooperation projects in the fields of renewable energies, the green economy, climate action, training in energy efficiency professions, as well as water management programmes, most of which are already delivering good results. However, and given the essential importance of environmental issues, notably climate change impacts, in the EU and Morocco and the desire of both parties to do more in these areas, the EU needed to identify more precisely the priorities for action on which it could concentrate its resources in future bilateral programming and deploy the set of instruments that will become available with the entry into force of the new financial framework. A Country Environmental Profile (CEP) is important to identify these priorities. 

The overall objective of this contract was the preparation of a Country Environmental Profile (CEP). This document describes the environmental situation of Morocco, its main trends and challenges in different terms and in its relevant geographical differentiations, with the aim of serving as a tool for the future programming of EU support programmes.  

The specific objectives of the CEP were: 

• To present an assessment of the state of the environment and the main factors and trends related to the environment in Morocco, including climate change, with a special focus on issues related to the Green Deal and environmental issues of mutual interest (climate change, coastal pollution, environmental standards in Morocco-EU trade, etc.). 
• To present an encompassing vision of  the awareness of environmental problems in Moroccan society and to identify environmental protection policies and strategies. 
• To evaluate the level of integration of climate change and environmental issues in other policies and sectors and map past and present relevant international cooperation efforts. 

This CEP ultimately leads to a list of recommendations and guidelines aimed at better integrating environmental and climate change considerations (adaptation and mitigation) into the areas of cooperation and at identifying opportunities to maximise the contribution of European cooperation to the implementation of the external dimension of the Green Deal (including its climate, biodiversity, circular economy, farm to fork, zero-pollution components) and its climate ambitions. It also identifies the main policy axes around which EU sectoral dialogue should be structured. This CEP is therefore an important source of reference information for the EU to target the political dialogue and future cooperation with Morocco. The recommendations help to strengthen the sectoral dialogue, prepare national programming and include guidelines or criteria to be used to facilitate the integration of environment and climate change issues in later phases of the operations cycle. This is the first CEP under the new EU Green Deal and it will therefore serve as a template for other future CEPs. 

• Consultations with country and other European Commission officials, various other national and local authorities, major international donors, including financial institutions, as well as key civil society actors (private companies, start-ups); 
• A review of key documents and reports;
• Field visits to sites of particular interest from an environmental or climate change perspective;
• Organisation of a presentation workshop;
• Drafting of the CEP including the following aspects: State of the environment and consideration of climate change, trends and pressures; Policy, regulatory and institutional framework; Integration of environment and climate change into key policies and sectors; EU cooperation with Morocco and other Donors with Morocco in the field of environment and climate change; Main challenges and recommendations; Conclusions.