The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has definitively annulled the European Union (EU) fisheries and agriculture agreements with Morocco for having included Western Sahara without taking into account the Sahrawi population.
The European Court of Justice understood that for the EU to seal an international agreement with Morocco for the exploitation of resources in this region, the consent of the people of Western Sahara was necessary, an approval which does not exist, according to the European Court.
The fisheries agreement had already been suspended since July 2023 following a ruling by the EU General Court, and the CJEU ordered its definitive annulment.
The judgment notes that the pacts concluded in 2019 were concluded without the consent of Western Sahara. “In 2019, he brought before the Court a series of actions for annulment of the Council decisions approving these agreements. Noting that the Union and Morocco had concluded agreements applicable to Western Sahara without having obtained the consent of the people of Western Sahara, as a third party to the disputed agreements, the Court annulled the disputed decisions, while temporarily maintaining their effects. , notes the judgment of the EU court.
Shortly after, contrary to this drift, Morocco has extended the mutual fishing agreement with Russia, which includes the coast of Western Sahara, a territory that the Moroccan kingdom includes in its southern provinces.
Moroccan diplomatic sources informed the Spanish news agency Europa Press that this agreement with Russia “includes the southern provinces,” which shows Moscow’s tendency to recognize the Moroccan nature of the Sahara.
This provision represents another position in favor of Morocco’s thesis for the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Morocco is proposing a formula of broad autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty with the project of developing the area as much as possible in all aspects and granting a large capacity for autonomy to the Sahrawis, by leaving defense and foreign policy in the hands of the Moroccan state.
This project has international support from major countries such as the United States, France, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Germany and Spain, who consider the Alawite initiative as the most serious, most credible and most realistic means of resolving the Sahrawi conflict.
On the other side, the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria (Morocco’s great political rival in the Maghreb), proposes to organize a referendum on independence so that the Sahrawi people decide on their future. This initiative is less supported on the international scene.
The CJEU’s proposal on the need to consult the Sahrawi population to sign commercial or economic agreements on Western Sahara may pose legitimacy problems because 80% of the population is in the so-called southern provinces under Moroccan control and 20% in the refugee camps in Algeria, where conditions are difficult under the rule of the Algerian authorities and the Polisario Front. The exact population to be consulted must be defined. It could also impact the holding of an independence referendum.
Morocco wants to protect its territorial integrity, because it considers Western Sahara to be its own territory, and intends to develop the region as much as possible to make it socially and economically prosperous. In this case, by promoting wealth-generating activities, such as all kinds of economic and commercial agreements with other countries that involve the territory.
The extension of the fishing agreement with Russia goes in this direction, which is “promising”, as the North African country pointed out. It should be noted that a few months ago the fourth session of the Russia-Morocco Joint Fisheries Commission was held in Rabat, during which additional plans for the development of cooperation were discussed.
Morocco finally negotiated a fishing agreement with Russia that includes the entire Atlantic coast of the Moroccan kingdom, without exception, a condition that Moscow had previously expressed its willingness to accept.
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