BRUSSELS- APS.dz.- The 2019 trade agreement between Morocco and the European Union (EU) “has accelerated the plundering” of the wealth of the Saharawi people, but the confirmation of the annulment of this treaty, which is currently at stake before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), would mark “the end of the financing” by Europe of the Moroccan expansionist project, the Polisario Front declared.
“As the proceedings before the Court of Justice of the EU enter their final phase, with a judgement expected in 2023, the report of the European Commission has just been released, whose assessment is clear: it is the acceleration, as never seen before, of the plundering of Saharawi wealth”, the Polisario Front’s representation in Europe and before the EU wrote in a statement issued on Wednesday evening.
“These economic issues take place in a legal framework which is now very secure”, the Saharawi diplomatic representation declared. The latter recalls that the CJEU had recognised in its judgment of 21 December 2016, the separate and distinct status of Western Sahara from Morocco, ruling that “the only criterion to be taken into account is the consent of the Saharawi people, and certainly not the benefits for the settlers”.
On 29 September 2021, the EU Court of First Instance annulled the 2019 agreement on the grounds that it had taken into account “benefits for the populations”, whereas only the “free and genuine consent of the Saharawi people, who are masters of their own destiny” is valid.
And in its judgment of 22 September 2022, the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights ruled that Sahrawi sovereignty is an “acquired and indisputable fact”, and denounced the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara as “a serious violation of the right to self-determination”.
In fact, the source continues, the provisional balance of this 2019 agreement shows that “the objective was to reinforce the dispossession of the (occupied Saharawi) territory”.
According to figures from the European Commission, quoted in the statement, “85% of agricultural products originating in Western Sahara are exported to the European Union, and the export volumes of fishery products have risen from 420 million euros to 670 million euros per year”. And as the Commission acknowledges, European financial gains and access to the European market provide the necessary funding for the Moroccan occupation forces.
Therefore, according to the statement, “the confirmation of the annulment of the 2019 agreements, which is currently before the Court of Justice, would mark the end of this funding for colonisation”.
It is therefore “a decisive phase” for the future of the Saharawi people, as the Saharawi diplomat Oubi Bouchraya Bashir explains: “The data provided on the European involvement in the illegal occupation of Western Sahara are overwhelming: if there was this 2019 agreement, it was only to accelerate this plundering, to the detriment of the Saharawi people.
“We are focusing our efforts on the proceedings before the Court, with the aim of putting a definitive end to European interference in the exercise of the right to self-determination and independence. But all those who have enriched themselves unjustly will be held accountable,” he said.
