Brussels, 09/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - With the European Parliament set to approve the new fishing agreement between the EU and Morocco this Tuesday 10 December (see EUROPE 10972), the Front Polisario, which represents the Sahrawi populations, “repeated its warnings” against this agreement, which “includes the territorial waters of the Western Sahara”. According to the Sahrawi press agency SPS, this is a “flagrant breach of international law”. There are also reports of demonstrations on the ground, which are believed to have left dozens of people injured. The watchword of the demonstrations focuses on the situation in general.
In the view of Polisario, the fisheries agreement would constitute “the scandalous involvement of the European populations” in a dossier which has been challenged at international level and “an encouragement to Morocco to continue to breach international law and human rights in an area under the aegis of the UN pending its decolonisation”, stressed a press release published by SPS.
The Moroccans appear not to be unaware of the difficulties of this examination or Polisario's active stance against the agreement (see EUROPE 10978). “Although the various protagonists can agree on the broad outlines of this new protocol, there is no unanimity on the fishing agreement within the European political groupings, whilst having the approval of the two major political families of the Parliament, the Socialists and the European People's Party. The Greens and the extreme Left oppose it, stressing the conflict in the Sahara, which would prevent any fishing in the territorial waters of the provinces of southern Morocco which have been claimed by Polisario with the support of Algeria”, according to Moroccan media, reflecting the official line. This means that, in the view of these media, “notwithstanding any theatricals, the new EU-Morocco fishing agreement, which has the strong support of Spain, is therefore likely to be voted through at the European Parliament this Tuesday”.
The two main political groups (EPP and S&D) have indeed backed the agreement and Gilles Pargneaux (S&D, France), president of the EU-Morocco friendship group at the European Parliament, who has been actively involved in defending the agreement, welcomed the decision made by his group on Wednesday of last week to vote for the agreement. Alain Cadec (EPP, France), deputy chair of the committee on fisheries of the European Parliament, recently said that “the issue of the Western Sahara needs to be resolved at UN level”, not at European Parliament level. “If the European Parliament should once again reject this agreement at the December plenary in Strasbourg, other fleets which are less aware in terms of environmental preservation and transparency in fishing, such as China for example, would quickly set in place private licences, this is a very real danger”, said Cadec. (FB/transl.fl)