Brussels, 26/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - Reacting to information published in this newsletter on 23 September (see EUROPE 11160), Morocco's permanent representative to the European institutions, Menouar Alem, has taken issue with the report and the statements backed by the Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) about the presence of European fishing vessels in the waters off the coast of Southern Sahara, a disputed territory whose fate the United Nations is attempting to settle. Alem said that parliament never decided to exclude the said waters from the fisheries agreement with the EU, and Morocco would never have signed an agreement that excluded them.
The Moroccan ambassador said that the all bodies at the EU had recognised the compatibility of the fisheries agreement with international law, and nobody was challenging that apart from a minority of MEPs actively campaigning for Western Saharan autonomy. Alem said that the EU fisheries agreement did not stipulate anything vis-à-vis Western Sahara apart from the fishing quotas for each zone. He said there was nothing illegal about EU fishing vessels operating in the waters off the Western Saharan coastline. (FB)