Sahrawis, EU in standoff over Moroccan trade agreement
The Polisario Front criticizes the EU’s farm trade agreement with Morocco because it also applies to the disputed territory of the Western Sahara; by bringing this agreement before the EU’s highest court, the Polisario Front puts its claim for independence back on the agenda.
On July 19, the Western Sahara’s national liberation movement, the Polisario Front, and the European Council had yet another standoff at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The latest dispute goes back to December 2015, when the CJEU partially revoked the 2012 Morocco-EU farm trade agreement. The court decided that the European Council had failed to appropriately examine its role in the exploitation of natural resources in the Western Sahara. The council was urged to verify that agricultural and fishing exports to the EU were not violating fundamental rights of the people of the Western Sahara, the Sahrawi.
The European Council decided to contest the CJEU's decision, this time with the support of five former colonial states — France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Belgium. In March, Rabat increased pressure by suspending contacts with the EU until Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, traveled to Morocco to reassure her support.
During the appeal on July 19 in Luxembourg, the council argued that the EU is not obliged to take fundamental rights into consideration when concluding international trade agreements. This was echoed by the Moroccan Confederation for Agriculture and Rural Development (COMADER) after the hearings. The COMADER intervenes in the proceedings to defend the interests of Morocco's different agricultural sectors. Unofficially, COMADER also defends Morocco’s interests at large, according to a source close to the Moroccan government. When questioned why Morocco did not officially intervene in the proceedings, the source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the intervening EU countries were in line with the Moroccan position regarding the trade agreement.
Klaus Buchner, a member of the EU Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI), told Al-Monitor that he was surprised by the lack of debate at the CJEU about the actual violations of fundamental rights in the Western Sahara. He regretted that there were hardly any questions asked about the frequent abuses Sahrawis are suffering from since the de facto annexation of the Western Sahara by Morocco.
