Today the European Commission has sent a recommendation to the European Council for renewing the fisheries in Western Sahara for one year. The Commission does not even mention that the fisheries take place in Western Sahara.
European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights (ELDH), representing lawyers in 16 European countries, denounce the EU fisheries in occupied Western Sahara, calling it "illegal".
Next Friday, the European Commission will formally ask the EU-governments for a mandate to negotiate a 12-month extension of the EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement (FPA) on current terms. Read: one more year of paying Morocco to fish in non-Moroccan waters.
Next Friday, the European Commission will formally ask the EU-governments for a mandate to negotiate a 12-month extension of the EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement (FPA) on current terms. Read: one more year of paying Morocco to fish in non-Moroccan waters.
On Monday, the European Parliament's committee for International Trade decided to delay the ratification-process of the EU-Moroccan agricultural agreement due to legal ambiguities.
The Spanish government has asked the European Commission for a one-year transitional extension of the soon to expire EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement. Spain is the main benefactor of the agreement.
Yesterday, 1 February 2011, European Commissioner for Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, confirmed her interest to renew the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which is set to expire at the end of the month. But the European Commission as a whole still hasn’t decided on what terms.
According to Moroccan police, foreign visitors are not allowed to talk with Saharawi. Several foreign groups have been expelled from Western Sahara or Morocco the last weeks after meeting with local people. This student was kicked out few hours after meeting a network of Saharawi ladies whose sons have disappeared, on 29 January 2011.
The EU ambassador does not know which independent institutions he himself referred to in May last year, in support of the EU fisheries agreement in Western Sahara. Yesterday, 2 Swedish students met with the embassy in Rabat, and got an answer that the EU has so far not been willing to respond to.
The European Commission announced today that it considers extending the soon to expire EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement. The Commission has also received 'relevant information' from Rabat on the agreement's impact on the local population of Western Sahara. No mention was made to the wishes of the people of Western Sahara.
The Spanish agrarian organisation COAG is convinced that the impending EU-Moroccan agricultural trade liberalisation agreement could be illegal for implicitly including Western Sahara. COAG has now condemned French company Azura’s presence in the occupied territories.
For the third consecutive day, Saharawi fishermen have been protesting in the harbour of Boujdour, demanding the right to fish in their own waters. Since Monday, Moroccan police officers have been preventing the Saharawi from accessing their boats.
"We have still time to influence so that the waters offshore Western Sahara are left outside of the agreement", writes columnist Helena Olsson in Finland's largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, on the unethical EU fisheries.
This is how wide you smile when you contribute to the continued illegal occupation of a country.