American Weapons for Morocco: Flanders Refused an 81-Million-Euro Transit, Then Changed Its Law

ne refusal, a single one, appears in the monthly report of the Flemish strategic goods control service for April 2026: the transit, from the United States and across Flemish territory, of military vehicles and parts intended for the Royal Armed Forces, for 81,618,114.33 euros. The application is recorded there as refused, definitively. The explanatory note of 13 May gives the ground: article 26, § 1, 4°, of the Flemish arms trade decree, read together with the first paragraph of its § 5, which requires refusal where the goods can be used in an armed conflict and the end user is a party to a regional armed conflict. The text does not name the theater.

That decree is living its last months. On 15 July 2026 the Flemish Parliament adopted at second reading a new text on the arms trade which aligns Flanders with the European common position of 2008 and drops the near-automatic ban the Moroccan file has just run into. It will not enter into force until 31 December 2027, unless the Flemish government brings that date forward. Until then, the rule that blocked the cargo remains the rule. And on the day it falls, it will not free Morocco with it: the easing set out in the new article 17 applies to transits bound for NATO and Wassenaar Arrangement countries, not to those originating in them, and the Kingdom belongs to neither. A licence will still be required, and article 18 will still allow it to be refused under the fourth criterion of the European common position. The press headlined that Flanders would no longer block American arms transits to Morocco; that is a forecast, and it rests on an inaccurate reading of the very text it announces.

Photo: Trougnouf, CC BY 4.0.