Brussels, Oct 8, 2014 (SPS) - The European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs has has held a meeting devoted to the study and examination of the situation in Western Sahara, in the light of the ongoing serious developments in the occupied Saharawi territories.
During the meeting, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, said that the Union supports the UN efforts for a just and lasting political solution to the conflict of Western Sahara.
Mogherini has emphasized the need to resort to international law regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
In a written question to Mogherini and EU Commission concerning human rights violations in Morocco, Spanish MEP Fernando Maura Barandiaran, from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE/ADLE), referred to the testimony the former Saharawi prisoner, Mustafa Mashdufi, presented on 7 September 2014 before the Council of Human Rights in Geneva.
According to the MEP, the former Saharawi detainee simply highlighted the systematic violations of human rights committed by Morocco against the civilians in the occupied territories of Western Sahara and political prisoners in Morocco’s prisons.
“Will the European Union support the extension of the mandate of MINURSO to include the monitoring and protection of human rights in that territory awaiting decolonization?,” asked Barandiaran.
For his part, President of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, Bernd Lange, from the group of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D), raised the issue of labeling of products coming from Western Sahara.
He, in this respect, noted that the agreement signed with Morocco in 2012 on trade in agricultural and fishery products does contain “no clear provisions” regarding the status of products coming from Western Sahara.
This situation, he added, is inconsistent with the status of Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory, a status recognized by the European Union with its right to self-determination.
He also asked what steps will the European Commission take to ensure that products from Western Sahara, on sale in EU markets, are clearly and correctly labeled.
“How can the European Commission ensure that the people of Western Sahara will benefit from the revenue of EU-Morocco agreement, and thus the right to self-determination is guaranteed ?,” he added. (SPS)
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