Brussels, 10/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 10 December, the General Court of the European Union overturned the decision regarding the conclusion of the free-trade agreement between the EU and the Kingdom of Morocco, “as it approves the application of the said agreement in the Western Sahara”.
The case (T-512/12) was brought before the Court by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario Front) challenging the decision of the Council of the EU of 8 March 2012 on the conclusion of the agreement between the EU and Morocco on reciprocal liberalisation measures on agricultural products, processed agricultural products, fish and fishery products.
The Polisario Front argued against the legality of the above decision on the grounds that it was in breach of EU law and international law since the free-trade agreement applied also in a disputed territory - the Western Sahara - Morocco's sovereignty over which is not recognised by the EU, its member states or the United Nations. By failing to take into account the specific nature of this situation, the EU neglected the interests and rights of the Sahrawi people.
The Council of the EU, which was backed by the European Commission, defended its decision, arguing, in particular, that it was not for the Council to check if there was a risk that the natural resources of the Western Sahara under Moroccan control might be extracted to the detriment of the inhabitants and infringe their fundamental rights.
In its ruling, the Court said that there was no total ban on concluding an agreement that might be applied to a disputed territory. The Council is required, however, to take account of compliance with fundamental rights when a free-trade agreement allows the export to EU member states of goods from a third country where these goods were made.
This requirement was all the more important, the Court stressed, in cases involving a territory like the Western Sahara which “is, de facto, administered by a third country, that is to say, by Morocco”, though not included within the internationally recognised borders of that third country (according to the UN and to the Polisario Front, it is still Spain that is the country administering the Western Sahara). Given this, the Council should have considered the claims by the Polisario Front that the extraction of the natural resources of the Western Sahara under Moroccan control would constitute “economic dispossession, the aim of which is to transform the structure of Sahrawi society”, according to the terms employed by the complainant and cited by the Court in its ruling. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)