The agreement between the EU and Morocco, whose current protocol expires on 17 July, is entering a turbulent period.
At the meeting of EU Fisheries Ministers on Monday 20 March, the Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian delegations asked the European Commission to extend the validity of the protocol until the final decision of the EU Court of Justice in autumn.
Most of the Member States that spoke later supported the requested extension of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco.
The EU-Morocco fisheries agreement and the associated implementing protocol entered into force on 18 July 2019. The protocol has a duration of 4 years. The agreement allows 128 vessels from the EU, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy and the UK to fish in Moroccan waters.
In September 2021, the EU General Court ruled in favour of the Polisario Front, the national liberation movement of Western Sahara, which argued that the fisheries agreement with Morocco had been concluded without the consent of the people of Western Sahara (see EUROPE 12822/7). The Council of the EU lodged an appeal on 16 December 2021.
Aid to affected fleets. Spain has 93 fishing licences in Moroccan waters. Spanish Minister Luis Planas told the press on Monday that aid should be paid to the country’s affected fishing fleets during the period when the agreement would be de facto suspended. “This is a European agreement and I will try to activate the European measures first”, Mr Planas said of the origin of the subsidies.
The EU Court of Justice ruling is expected in autumn, although Planas said he did not know the date. “No hearing date has yet been set at the Court of Justice of the EU and the chamber to which the cases have been assigned is not yet known” (appeals C-778/21 P Commission v Polisario Front and C-798/21 P EU Council v Polisario Front, in which these two institutions are each challenging the judgment delivered by the General Court on 29 September 2021 in joined cases T-344/19 and T-356/19), according to the Court of Justice of the EU.
Probable disruption. In view of the ongoing legal proceedings, EU Commissioner for Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius reportedly told Fisheries Ministers on Monday that it might be “impossible to avoid a disruption” of fishing activities by EU vessels in Moroccan waters.
He reportedly invited EU countries to examine the possibility of finding new fishing opportunities elsewhere within the EU/Mauritania agreement, as quotas are largely underused. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)