With the continuously deteriorating situation in the Spanish job market, a large number of Moroccans have lost their jobs, and will be unable to renew their work permit, as the Spanish immigration law stipulates that immigrants may not renew their work permits without a work contract.

“We call on the Spanish government to implement a 1-year moratorium to allow thousands of Moroccan immigrants, who have lost their job, to renew their work permits, until the situation gets better,” the spokesman of the association told the Moroccan official news agency, MAP.

In this respect, the government representative in the region of Catalonia promised to treat this issue with “flexibility”, following a meeting on Tuesday with the region's associations representing Moroccan immigrants.

These very immigrants have been the first to be hit by Spain's strained economic situation, as a number of them have lost their job and find it difficult to find another.

Unemployment rate among them has reached 21%, compared to 14% among Spaniards, according to the Spanish minister of labour and immigration, Celestino Corbacho.

Earlier, Spain's attempt to deal with this problem caused it much criticism, both at home and abroad.

At first, the Spanish government tried to lure immigrants out of the country, through encouraging them to return home, against the payment of their unemployment benefits.

Unemployed Moroccans then responded by claiming between euro 20,000 and 300,000 to submit their work permit and return home voluntarily.

Later, the Spanish media had talked about a leaked internal note giving the Spanish police instruction to arrest a number of illegal immigrants according to a quota for each district, with special focus on Moroccans.

Morocco immediately denounced the move, but later, the Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Angel Losada Torres-Quevedo, categorically denied these allegations.

“The protectionist, even racist, nature of some measures [taken by certain European countries] against immigrants has sent negative signals to the European public opinion,” said last week the Moroccan king's Roving Ambassador, Assia Bensaleh Alaoui. She was speaking at an international forum on diversity and interculturality in Spain.