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EU/Morocco free trade agreement: Polisario Front optimistic about European Court of Justice verdict

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Brussels, 5 March 2021 (SPS) - The Polisario Front is optimistic about the new verdict of the European Court of Justice concerning the motion for annulment of the agreement on the extension of the EU/Morocco free trade and association agreements in the territory of Western Sahara, the representative of the Polisario Front in Europe and EU Oubi Bouchraya Bachir said on Thursday.
“We are optimistic about the fact that the judges will decide in the same way as the previous decisions those of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) of 2016 and 2018,” affirmed Oubi Bouchraya in statement to APS, underlining that “it will be a very important event for the Polisario Front.”
“Following the court orders made by the Court in 2016 and 2018, the crucial issue is to know if the European Union has obtained or not the Sahrawi people’s consent before concluding the agreements, which is a necessity from the moment the scope of EU/Morocco agreements was extended to include the Sahrawi territory,” he said. 
“In law, the Polisario Front, legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, is the only one capable of giving this consent, yet it didn’t make it and besides EU didn’t ask it, preferring to negotiate the agreement with the occupying power Morocco,” he stressed.
He underlined that the European Court of Justice held two public hearings to examine the appeals lodged in April and June 2019 by the Polisario Front against the agriculture and fishing agreements concluded between the European Union and Morocco, as well as the regulation implementing the fisheries agreement, as long as these agreements were extended to Western Sahara. (SPS)
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