On Wednesday 1 October, the Committee of Permanent Representatives of Member States to the EU (Coreper) approved the launch of the written procedure for adopting the decision to sign the revised EU-Morocco Association Agreement. The original agreement was annulled by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) on 4 October 2024 (see EUROPE 13497/12). They were of the opinion that the people of Western Sahara had not been consulted before the agreement was concluded. The sovereignty of this territory is disputed between Morocco and the Polisario Front.
The CJEU gave the two partners a one-year reprieve before the terms of the agreement ceased to apply. The EU and Morocco therefore have until 4 October to sign the agreement and provisionally bring the trade component into force. If they do not do so, Moroccan products will no longer benefit from preferential tariff.
To circumvent the Court’s ruling, the European Commission and Morocco have negotiated a protocol requiring products from Western Sahara to be identified by means of labelling. This does not change the application of the agreement for this region.
The European Parliament will also have to give its consent in the coming weeks. An initial discussion on this subject is scheduled for Monday 6 October in the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade. Over recent months, MEPs have complained that they are not receiving any information from the European Commission about what is going to happen next.
Danish MEP Per Clausen (The Left) said on Wednesday that the European Commission was completely ignoring the Court’s ruling by continuing to consider products from Western Sahara as being Moroccan in the revised agreement. “This shows an abysmal lack of respect, both for international law, for occupied peoples, and for the EU’s own court”, he said. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)