While the highest Court of the EU has stipulated that no trade arrangement with Morocco can be applied to Western Sahara, the EU Commission this month visited the occupied territory to update the list of companies authorised to export their products to the EU.
WSRW has again asked Siemens to clarify how they’ve obtained the consent of the people of Western Sahara to their involvement in literally all of Morocco’s wind power plans in the occupied territory.
For a third consecutive year, Morocco has spent most of the EU’s fisheries sectoral support on further developing the fishing industry in occupied Western Sahara – with the explicit approval of the Union.
Fresh leaks from international tax-havens provide more information about who is behind the Glencore oil operations in occupied Western Sahara.
While Morocco presses on with its renewable energy projects in occupied Western Sahara, the EU's Foreign Affairs Chief has clarified that the EU will not provide any financial contributions.
Even more wind farms are being planned in occupied Western Sahara, and all of them are in the portfolio of the Moroccan monarch's company NAREVA.
“I think this incident should alert people about these EU-Morocco trade negotiations on products from Western Sahara: they are not transparent at all”, says Jytte Guteland, socialist Euro-parliamentarian from Sweden.
Morocco and Siemens press on with their plans to generate energy in the human rights black-spot that is Western Sahara: the first controversial wind farm near Boujdour is expected to be operational in December 2018, built by a UK company.
Over the past 24 hours, WSRW has observed a resumed seabed exploration north of Dakhla, in the block operated by American oil company Kosmos Energy in collaboration with Scotland's Cairn Energy.
Both the EU and Morocco seem keen conclude the negotiations to keep occupied Western Sahara within the territorial scope of their bilateral trade deal - in spite of a judgment by the EU's highest Court ruling this out.
Opposition referred to the inclusion of Western Sahara, which they say renders the deal illegal under EU law.
For the umpteenth time, the EU's self-contradiction in relation to Western Sahara surfaces.
Finnish energy company Wärtsilä has struck a deal with the Moroccan government to supply a power plant to Dakhla - a town located well outside of Morocco, and inside occupied Western Sahara.
... precisely in the territory that the highest Court of the European Union considers "distinct and separate" from Morocco.
The EU Commission puts the trade flow from Western Sahara into the Union at "just €7000" for the entire year of 2016. "Beggars belief", WSRW states.
Sweden is known for paying lip-service to Saharawi self-determination, but is it putting its money where its mouth is? Check out our newly published report on Sweden's involvement in the taking of occupied Western Sahara's natural resources.
"Seeking to circumvent the ECJ’s ruling, directly challenges the credibility of the EU, and significantly damages the potential for progress through the UN-led negotiation process", Saharawi groups qualify the EU's talks with Morocco regarding Western Sahara trade, in their letter to the EU's Foreign Affairs Chief.
Verdict comes after years of accusations that the trials were politically motivated, imprisoning activists who stood up against Morocco's social and economic deprivation of Saharawis.
