Geneva \u2013 The Special Adviser to the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) on Natural Resources and Legal Affairs, Abi Bishraya Bashir, affirmed on Tuesday that the new trade agreement approved by the European Union with Morocco, which explicitly includes the territory of Western Sahara, flagrantly violates international and European law. He stated that whether the deal is implemented \u201cprovisionally\u201d or \u201cfinally ratified,\u201d its fate will mirror that of the previous agreement annulled by the European Court of Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to the Algerian Press Service (APS), Bashir explained that the new accord constitutes a clear legal and political violation, both in form and substance. He pointed out that negotiations between the European Commission and Morocco occurred over several months without prior authorization from the EU Council. The vote took place on September 10, and the Commission announced the deal with Morocco just five days later, on September 15, raising serious questions about its legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo one can accept that such a complex agreement with far-reaching economic and political implications could be finalized in just five days,\u201d he stated. Bashir added that the Commission sought to impose a fait accompli<\/em> by opting for a \u201cprovisional application\u201d of the deal instead of awaiting final ratification, thereby bypassing the European Parliament and avoiding open debate through written correspondence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official noted that the European Parliament\u2019s Foreign Trade Committee Chairman and several members criticized the Commission\u2019s methods and its attempt to legitimize Morocco\u2019s occupation of Western Sahara. One of the main violations, he stressed, lies in the negotiation process itself\u2014conducted exclusively with the Moroccan occupier while deliberately excluding the Sahrawi people and their sole legitimate representative, the Polisario Front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a legal standpoint, Bashir highlighted that the agreement deliberately circumvents the ruling of the European Court of Justice issued on October 4, 2024, which reaffirmed that any accord involving Western Sahara\u2019s natural resources requires \u201cthe consent of the Sahrawi people,\u201d not that of settlers or residents brought in by the occupying power. He underscored that the deal also breaches the principle affirming that Western Sahara and Morocco are \u201ctwo separate and distinct territories\u201d and that Morocco holds no sovereignty whatsoever over the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to the EU\u2019s attempt to disguise the origin of products from occupied territories by inventing designations such as \u201carea or region of origin,\u201d Bashir reminded that the European Court of Justice clearly ruled that products from Western Sahara must bear the label \u201cWestern Sahara\u201d with the code \u201cEH,\u201d distinct from Morocco\u2019s \u201cMA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concluding his statement, the Sahrawi official reaffirmed that the Polisario Front, as the sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, strongly denounces and firmly rejects this illegal agreement. He confirmed that the movement will once again resort to the European judiciary, as confirmed by previous rulings\u2014particularly that of October 4, 2024\u2014to overturn the deal just as it did with earlier agreements that sought to legitimize Morocco\u2019s unlawful occupation of Western Sahara.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Geneva \u2013 The Special Adviser to the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) on Natural Resources and Legal Affairs, Abi Bishraya Bashir, affirmed on Tuesday that the new trade agreement approved by the European Union with Morocco, which explicitly includes the territory of Western Sahara, flagrantly violates international and European law. He stated …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-algeria","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14813,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14811\/revisions\/14813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}