The Spanish faction of the European People’s Party (EPP) - the largest political group in the European Parliament - has called for a revision of the EU’s trade agreement with Morocco to explicitly exclude products from Western Sahara.

In a 17 July 2025 intervention before the Parliament’s Petitions Committee, Spanish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Carmen Crespo warned of what she described as an “unacceptable imbalance” in the EU fruit and vegetable market, caused by rising Moroccan imports and the absence of proper safeguards for EU producers. She demanded reciprocity mechanisms, binding import quotas, stricter controls, and “above all” the exclusion of goods from occupied Western Sahara.

Crespo's remarks were made five days before the European Commission had requested the EU Council to open new trade talks with Morocco that would once again include Western Sahara, as WSRW was able to reveal earlier this week.

EU farmers - and particularly Spanish farmers - have been negatively affected by the decade-long inclusion of Moroccan farms in occupied Western Sahara into the EU-Moroccan trade agreement.  

Crespo, who is also the Chair of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee, pointed to the October 2024 ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), which confirmed that Western Sahara is a “distinct and separate” territory from Morocco, and that its inclusion in any EU-Morocco agreement requires the consent of the Saharawi people. She criticised the continued arrival of Western Sahara produce under Moroccan labels, saying this violated international law, misled European consumers, and distorted competition.

The statement also called for Morocco to compensate the EU if alleged tax evasion - estimated by Crespo at up to €70 million - is confirmed.

The European People’s Party (EPP) group has historically aligned with Morocco’s stance on Western Sahara in the European Parliament, frequently supporting agreements that apply to the occupied territory despite clear case law from the CJEU. The group has generally opposed efforts to explicitly exclude Western Sahara from EU trade or fisheries agreements, although a number of its MEPs - particularly from Northern Europe - have dissented.

In 2019 - years after the EU Court had already ruled that applying such agreements to Western Sahara without Saharawi consent is illegal - the EPP overwhelmingly backed a revised trade agreement that explicitly included Western Sahara in its scope. That very agreement was struck down again by the EU Court in October 2024. See how each MEP voted at the 2019 vote here. 

At the same time, a proposal to first refer the revised trade deal to the EU Court for judicial review was rejected by a majority of MEPs, including most of the EPP delegation. This occurred despite warnings from Spanish farmers that the deal would harm the EU’s own fruit and vegetable producers.

“While the Spanish EPP’s current stance is framed as defending EU farmers, its acknowledgment of the CJEU’s position on Western Sahara is a welcome development,” said Sara Eyckmans of WSRW. 

“Those same rulings also apply to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement. We therefore encourage the Spanish EPP to be consistent, and to support aligning all EU agreements, including fisheries, with the law – and with the Saharawi people’s right to decide over their own land and resources.”

Western Sahara has been listed by the UN as a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1963. Morocco invaded in 1975, defying the UN and the International Court of Justice, which found no sovereign ties between Morocco and the territory. In ten consecutive rulings since 2015, the CJEU has held that Western Sahara is separate from Morocco, and that any agreement covering it requires the consent of the Saharawi people, represented by the Polisario Front.

The CJEU first ruled the application of the EU-Morocco Trade Agreement unlawful in Western Sahara in 2016. An amended version – for which Saharawi consent was neither sought nor obtained – was again annulled in October 2024, with its application allowed only until 4 October 2025. Two other rulings on Western Sahara were issued in October 2024: one cancelling the application of the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement in the territory, and another one with immediate effect, requiring that products originating in Western Sahara be labelled as such, not as “Moroccan”.

The Spanish conservatives' call for the exclusion of Western Sahara from the EU-Morocco trade relations - if pursued - would bring its position closer to this binding legal framework.

The Spanish faction is the third largest national group in the EPP (after German and Polish delegations). The German EPP delegation was instrumental in temporarily putting an end to the application of the EU fisheries agreement in Western Sahara back in a parliamentary vote 2011. 

The EPP's youth branch YEPP already in 2013 called for the exclusion of Western Sahara from the EU-Morocco trade agreements. 

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