A jako dodatek komunikat prasowy Frente POLISARIO z 3.10.2025
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PRESS RELEASE
The POLISARIO Front strongly condemns the new agreement between the EU and Morocco and announces that it will use all appropriate means to ensure that the sovereign rights of the Sahrawi people are respected.
Bir Lehlu, 03-10-2025 According to an official publication released today, the Council of the EU has decided to sign, with provisional application, a new agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco on tariff preferences for products originating in occupied Western Sahara. This agreement is intended to replace the 2018 agreement, which was annulled by the European courts. As the sole representative of the Saharawi people, the POLISARIO Front strongly rejects this new agreement, which is contrary to international law and directly violates the Court's rulings.
In its judgment of December 21, 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Western Sahara constitutes a separate and distinct territory from the Kingdom of Morocco, and that any agreement applicable to it must have the consent of the Sahrawi people, regardless of the alleged benefits. In its judgments of October 4, 2024, which reaffirm the fundamental importance of the consent of the Sahrawi people as the sole condition for the validity of any act of the European Union affecting Western Sahara, the Court recognizes, this time explicitly, the capacity of the POLISARIO Front to act before the courts in defense of the sovereign rights of the Sahrawi people over their national territory and natural resources, based directly on international law.
In view of the soundness of the principles established by the Court in its case law, the illegality of the new agreement is flagrant. Negotiated in five days, without the knowledge of the Saharawi people, it was adopted in haste by means of a written procedure to bind the Member States, while its provisional application is intended to disarm the European Parliament and present it with a fait accompli. In essence, the option chosen is to amend EU legislation to adapt it to the illegal occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco. Thus, the concept of “region of origin” is invented, an unprecedented exception to the universally accepted concept of "country of
origin," while the Commission undertakes to support Moroccan agribusiness by directly financing desalination plants in occupied territory. In the short term, this means the destruction of European agricultural sectors, which are already in great difficulty due to the current volume of exports, and to which the Sahrawi people have always been opposed. With this new agreement, the EU is providing the Moroccan occupier with the means to remain illegally in occupied territory, through repression and systematic violations of fundamental rights, thus perpetuating its war of colonial aggression against the Sahrawi people.
Instead of entering into direct negotiations with the POLISARIO Front, which was the only way to ensure compliance with the Court's rulings, the European Commission persists in illegality, condemning the EU to repeat the mistakes of the past. But this brutal approach is, in reality, an admission of great weakness in the face of the Moroccan occupier's concern, which seeks to gain a few more months, when everyone knows that European involvement is a dead end, rejected by the Court's rulings. Strengthened by the 2024 rulings protecting the Sahrawi people's access to European justice, the POLISARIO Front announces that it will pursue all appropriate legal avenues with determination and discernment. Aware of the progress made since 2012, the Sahrawi people approach this new phase with the utmost serenity. Meanwhile, as the ratification process begins, the POLISARIO Front solemnly calls on the European authorities, on behalf of the Saharawi people, to reject the conclusion of this new agreement, which violates the right to self-determination and destabilizes the UN process by encouraging the Moroccan occupier in its headlong rush forward. In Western Sahara, as elsewhere, any lasting peace must be based on respect for the United Nations Charter and international law.
Contact: europe@fpolisario.eu
