Algiers, 30 September 2021 (SPS) - The annulment of two agreements between the European Union (EU) and the Kingdom of Morocco on agreement and fishing by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is a “resounding victory for the legitimate cause of the Sahrawi people,” said Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, Ramtane Lamamra.
"This is a brilliant victory for the legitimate cause of the Sahrawi people, first, through the recognition of the representativeness of the Polisario Front by the highest judicial body of the European Union (EU), which gives it the capacity to act before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)," said the Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad.
It is also a victory because it is a matter of "annulment of the two agreements sealed in violation of the obligation relating to the necessary obtaining of the free and genuine consent of the Sahrawi people stemming directly from the separate and distinct status of the territory of Western Sahara as a non-self-governing territory eligible for self-determination in accordance with international law.
"This double major advance enshrined in European jurisprudence is a historic achievement that will now be imposed on all member countries of the European Union and its institutions in their relations with Morocco, as an occupying state," said the FM.
"This sentence also marks a new stage in the struggle of the people of Western Sahara for the exercise of their inalienable and non-negotiable right to self-determination, in the sense that it constitutes a benchmark for international organizations involved in the search for a solution to the conflict in Western Sahara that guarantees the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination," he said.
In line with the status of Western Sahara, represented by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as a founding state of the African Union, "this victory limits the expansionist goals of the Kingdom of Morocco," said Lamamra.
"Moreover, this ruling indicates to the Security Council of the United Nations the path that the completion of the decolonization of Western Sahara must imperatively take," he continued.
"Faced with an illegal occupation of Sahrawi territories and an unbridled exploitation of natural resources over which the people of Western Sahara is the exclusive holder of permanent sovereignty, the Security Council is more than ever called upon to protect the rights of the people of Western Sahara," said the minister.
062/700