Brussels, June 21, 2011 (SPS) – EU Member States are expected to split this week on whether to extend the embattled Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) between the EU and Morocco, regarded by most as illegal and rejecting by Countries include the UK and Germany for failing to benefit the people of Western Sahara.
As Ambassadors prepare to meet on 22 June in Brussels to decide the fate of the agreement, the political representatives of the people of Western Sahara, the Polisario Front , has urged the EU to scrap the deal
" Not only is the deal illegal, but it also involves the EU throwing its money away," said Polisario Front Representative to the European Union, Mohamed Sidati, referring to a leaked internal report prepared for the European Commission which revealed recently that the EU generates turnover of only €0.65 for every one of the €36 million its pays Morocco annually for fishing access to Moroccan waters.
The Polisario Front has consistently demanded that the EU exclude Western Sahara’s waters from any agreement with Morocco. This view is shared by the European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, who recommended in late 2010 that any renewal of the agreement upon its expiry in February 2011 should apply to Morocco’s waters only.
Under heavy lobbying by France and Spain, a mandate to renew the agreement in February was passed by a slim ‘qualified majority’ of EU Member States. Due to legal concerns, Denmark, Sweden and the UK voted against the renewal, and Finland and Germany abstained. If these countries are joined in Wednesday’s vote by Austria or a combination of Ireland and Slovenia, the proposed Protocol will be defeated and lapse at the end of August.
"The EU must now make a clear choice between principle and plunder," said Sidati. "If Member States push for the renewal of a fish agreement without excluding the waters off Western Sahara, it risks a showdown with the European Parliament and a potential battle in the European courts
The Polisario Front Representative wrote to EU Foreign and Fisheries Ministers on 3 June 2011 to reiterate that EU fishing in Western Sahara’s waters is illegal, and to urge the EU to use the expiry of the current arrangements as an opportunity to right its wrong.
In his response on 14 June, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague wrote that the UK had voted against a temporary one year renewal of the protocol in February because in the absence of any evidence from Morocco, he “could not be satisfied that fishing off the coast of Western Sahara under the auspices of the FPA was conducted to the benefit and in the interests of the people of Western Sahara.
The European Parliament’s Legal Service found in May 2009 that fishing by EU vessels in Western Saharan waters under the FPA violates international law.
This was followed later in the year by a EP resolution [P7_TA (2010) 0443] expressing concern about the illegal exploitation of Western Sahara’s resources, and the failure of the international community to complete the process of decolonization in Western Sahara after more than 30 years.(SPS)
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