Luxembourg (EuroEFE) – The Advocate General of the European Union will give her opinion on 21 March 2024 on the legal validity or invalidity of the trade and fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco, which the Polisario Front rejects because it includes the export of agricultural and fisheries products exploited in the territories and waters of Western Sahara.
The date of 21 March was announced on Tuesday by the Advocate General herself, the Croatian Tamara Capeta, at the end of the second and last hearing of the litigation in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which is studying the appeals of the European Commission and the European Council – which brings together the governments of each EU country – against the annulment of the agreements with Morocco.
In 2021, the General Court of the European Union (CJEU) accepted two appeals by the Polisario Front for annulment of the trade and fisheries agreements, considering that they should have been endorsed by the Saharawi organisation as the representative of the people of Western Sahara, although it did not paralyse their implementation pending a final judgment.
The Commission and the European Council appealed the decision of the EU’s court of first instance, the EU’s highest judicial authority, to the CJEU, arguing that the Polisario is not entitled to represent the Saharawi people in international courts.
The Advocate General, very inquisitive with Brussels
The judges of the CJEU devoted Tuesday’s final hearing to questions to the parties involved in the dispute, although it was the EU Advocate General, whose opinions usually guide the final judgment of the judges, who was the most inquisitive in her interrogations, especially directed at the Council and the European Commission.
Counsel Capeta wanted to clarify whether Morocco is obliged to specify the origin of fruit and vegetables produced in Western Sahara and imported from there to the EU with different labelling.
The agreement signed with Brussels obliges this distinction to be made, but the European Council’s lawyer in the dispute, Frederik Naert, admitted that the responsibility for correctly certifying the origin depends on the good work of the Moroccan authorities.
“The agreement requires that there be a competent authority that can carry out this control and, to date, Western Sahara does not have authorities that can carry out the functions of a normal state”, Naert justified.
The Advocate General also wanted to know what the consultations held by the European Commission with civil entities and economic agents of Western Sahara prior to the signing of the agreement with Morocco consisted of, and which Brussels uses to justify before the CJEU that the pacts had the consent of the Saharawi people, which is exactly what the 2021 judgment of the TGUE says did not exist.
At one point in his response, the European Commission’s lawyer in the trial, the Spaniard Daniel Calleja, assured that, with these consultations, Brussels wanted to “evaluate the benefits” that the agreement with Morocco would have for the population of Western Sahara, which he put at 54,000 new jobs and a saving of 80 million euros in exports, thanks to the preferential tariffs.
In her reply, the Advocate General hardened her tone, considering that, with this answer, Calleja was not “clarifying anything”, and explicitly asked the Commission if it had asked for the consent of the Saharawi people to seal the agreement with Morocco.
“As far as I understood, they were not asking for any consent from the Saharawi people, they were just checking if there were any beneficial effects for them”, Capeta concluded.
The Polisario Front lawyer, Gilles Devers, also intervened to question the legitimacy of the consultations held by Brussels, as, he said, Western Sahara’s economic actors and civil organisations are largely made up of Moroccan “settlers”, and claimed that the Commission’s consultations do not “distinguish” them from the indigenous people.
Polisario Front hopes for a favourable judgement
With the phase of the oral hearing concluded, there was optimism among the Saharawi delegation following the hearing on Tuesday. The Polisario Front representative in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, expressed the “hope” that the judgement of the CJEU would “definitively annul” the trade and fisheries agreement for “including resources that do not belong” to Morocco.
Speaking to EFE after the hearing, the Polisario representative predicted that the ruling “will strengthen” the Saharawi people “in their struggle for self-determination and independence” and “will break with the propaganda” which, he said, Morocco spreads “using the countries of the European Union” to arrogate to itself the sovereignty of Western Sahara.
Arabi regretted that the European Commission tried to convince the court with the premise that the trade agreements will benefit the Saharawi population, since, in his opinion, “the need” for this pact to be endorsed by “the legal representative of the Saharawi people, which is the Polisario Front” prevails.
In a 1979 resolution, the UN General Assembly described the Polisario Front as “the representative of the people of Western Sahara”, and recommended that this organisation participate “fully” in the search for a solution to the conflict.
The EU is Morocco’s main trading partner. In 2022, 56% of Morocco’s exports went to the EU, while 45% of its imports came from the EU. For the EU, Morocco is also the main partner on the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
