The Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) ruled on Friday, October 4, in favor of the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front by definitively invalidating two trade agreements concluded between Morocco and the EU. These 2019 agreements on fisheries and agriculture were concluded in “lack of understanding of the principles of self-determination” of the Sahrawi people, the Superior Court established in Luxembourg ruled in a ruling.
The consent of the Sahrawi people to the conclusion of these agreements was one of the conditions for their validity. However, the Court ruled that even if the consultations had taken place in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that had come almost entirely under Moroccan control, they did not amount to consent.
An unresolved postcolonial status
This consent could have been preserved if the application of these agreements had given “a precise, concrete and substantial advantage”which was not the case, according to the Court. Consequently, requests to annul a decision of the European justice system adopted in the first instance in 2021 are rejected. At that time, the EU court annulled the two trade agreements between the EU and Morocco.
The Court’s decision on Friday, however, has no short-term consequences. The fisheries agreement had already expired in July 2023 and the Court extended the application of the agreement on agricultural products for one year from Friday.
In another ruling, the EU Court of Justice also stipulated that the labeling of melons and tomatoes harvested in Western Sahara must mention this territory and not Morocco as the country of origin.
The Confédération Paysanne, a French agricultural union, had asked France to prohibit the import of melons and tomatoes from the territory of Western Sahara, wrongly labeled, according to it, as coming from Morocco. The Court agreed with him and ruled that the country of origin was indeed Western Sahara and not Morocco.
Vast desert expanse of 266,000 km2 Located north of Mauritania, Western Sahara is the last territory on the African continent whose postcolonial status has not been resolved: Morocco controls more than 80% in the west, the Polisario Front less than 20% in the east, the entire territory. being separated by a sand wall and a buffer zone under the control of UN peacekeepers.
In late 2020, Donald Trump’s United States recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the former Spanish colony, breaking the international consensus on the current status of the disputed territory.
