Today, COREPER - the body of EU Member States’ ambassadors - is expected to vote in favour of a new EU-Morocco trade agreement covering occupied Western Sahara. The Council of the EU is scheduled to formally adopt the deal before the weekend.

Yet, remarkably, the public still has no idea what the Council is voting on.

The draft agreement and explanatory memorandum are not available on the EU Commission’s online register of documents, nor on the Council’s public register. The proposal is being rushed through in complete opacity, despite directly affecting an occupied territory and coming in the wake of ten consecutive rulings by the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) that stressed the Saharawi people’s right to consent.

This lack of transparency contrasts sharply with the Commission’s handling of other sensitive trade files. For instance, the Commission’s proposal to suspend trade concessions to Israel was published the very next day, while Council has not even scheduled a date for its vote.

For Western Sahara, however, the opposite is true: the Council is preparing to adopt a deal within days, while the public is left in the dark about its contents.

The EU’s rush and secrecy around this agreement undermine not only the Saharawi people’s rights, but also the EU’s own democratic standards.

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