Morocco suffers EU blow by court ruling over Western Sahara
Frosty relations between Morocco and the European Union have tumbled again due to a legal ruling, possibly pushing Rabat to repeat allowing thousands of immigrants from Africa into the EU as an act of retaliation.
The European Union’s top court has confirmed an earlier ruling cancelling trade deals that allow Morocco to export products to the EU from the disputed Western Sahara region, a move Morocco slammed as “blatant political bias”, reports AL Jazeera and a number of newswires on 4th October.
Earlier on, the European Commission had signed a trade deal with Morocco which included agricultural products which emanated from the disputed region. Yet the EU’s top court ruled that the Commission hadn’t been very efficient in its haste to get the deal signed.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the European Commission breached the right of people in Western Sahara to self-determination by concluding trade deals with Morocco without involving them in the process.
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The decision is the final ruling after several appeals by the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, considered the most powerful EU institution in Brussels which signed fishing and agriculture agreements with Morocco in 2019 that also covered products from the Western Sahara.
“The consent of the people of Western Sahara to the implementation … is a condition for the validity of the decisions by which the [EU] Council approved those agreements on behalf of the European Union,” the court said.
READ: Moroccan MEP Bribery and Sahara Outlook
The ruling touches on a sensitive subject for the Moroccans which is the real ethnic identity of the people of the region – the same polemic which halted progress of a peace deal with Algeria in the 90s where Morocco ultimately refused to go ahead with a referendum.
The court said a consultation process that took place had not involved “the people of Western Sahara but the inhabitants who are currently present in that territory, irrespective of whether or not they belong to the people of Western Sahara”.
READ: Martin Jay: Morocco is about to lose the UK as a strategic partner
The court also ruled that melons and tomatoes produced in Western Sahara must now have their origin labelled as such.
The Commission said it would examine the ECJ judgement in detail, while Morocco condemned it, given that the case was brought about by Algeria which has significant lobbying powers both in Brussels and Washington.
It’s not the first time though that Morocco has failed to include Western Sahara into trade deals struck with western countries. Earlier, Maghrebi revealed that Rabat also fumbled a golden opportunity in the last months of the conservative party’s rule in Britain to have the region included in a present Morocco-UK trade deal. The gaffe has possibly cost billions of dollars to Morocco due to the UK government blocked from part funding British firms who want to move to Western Sahara and set up new ventures.
The EU ruling will naturally be fought by Rabat, who already claim the ruling contained legal errors and “suspicious factual mistakes” – a hint to Algeria’s meddling – Morocco’s foreign ministry said in a statement. In reality though, it is more likely that Rabat will play the blackmail ruse of reminding the EU that Morocco holds the keys to one of the largest immigration bottlenecks on Europe’s borders in the south of Spain.
READ: Yasmine Hasnaoui: How Algeria swindles its citizens over the Sahara
Western Sahara, a tract of desert the size of Britain, has been the scene of Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute since colonial power Spain left in 1975 and Morocco annexed the territory.
The Algerian-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state in Western Sahara, hailed the verdict as an “historic victory” for the area’s Sahrawi people.
Al Jazeera/agencies
