During a press conference last week, Polisario invited the Union to conversations on continuation of fisheries offshore Western Sahara.
Photo : Moroccan police officers near a port in occupied Western Sahara.
The representative of Polisario for the EU, Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, annnounced on 1 October during a press conference in Madrid, that Poliario is ready “to help Spanish fishermen, but in the framework established during the latest legal decision” - referring to the landmark ruling by the EU Court of Justice on 29 September.
In its decision, the Court annulled the trade and fisheries agreements between the Union and Morocco, as they were applied to Western Sahara. The court concluded that the people of the territory, through its UN representative Polisario, had not consented to the extension of the two agreements.
Spain - still considered the legal coloial power in Western Sahara - har a large interest in the EU's fisheries agreement with Morocco. 91 out of the 128 EU vessels that are authorised to fish under the agreement are Spanish. Following yesterday's decision, the governor of Andalucia - one of the principal fisheries regions in Spain - called on the Spanish government to appeal the decision.
The European institutions have 2 month and 10 days to file an appeal. Observer etimate that it is little likely that the Court will reach another conclusion than the one concluded yesterday.
The EU Commission has authored a new report detailing how Moroccan settlers benefit from a trade agreement that has been found illegal by the EU Court of Justice multiple times.
The WSRW report P for Plunder 2023 to be published in March 2023 will contain information on all vessels that departed occupied Western Sahara from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2022.
The Israeli company that signed an agreement for hydrocarbon exploration in occupied Western Sahara claims to follow “the laws in force”. But of which country?
The Universities of Kiel and Hamburg have taken part in mapping the seafloor offshore occupied Western Sahara, seemingly without knowing where they carried out the operation.