EU Court’s Advocate General Tamara Capeta Calls for Annulment of EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement in Western Sahara
BY: Dr. Hana Saada
ALGIERS- Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Tamara Capeta, on Thursday supported the annulment of the fisheries agreement signed between the European Union and Morocco in 2019 – where the Spanish fleet was the main beneficiary – including the illegal entry of waters of Western Sahara.
The opinion concludes that “the Council’s failure to treat the territory of Western Sahara and the waters adjacent to it as separate and distinct from the Kingdom of Morocco did not respect the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination.”
Thus, the EU law for labeling foodstuffs, such as EU customs rules, requires indicating Western Sahara as the country of origin for agricultural products grown and harvested in that region, and failing to do so “would contradict the EU’s declared position on the Western Sahara territories and violate the requirements of providing ‘true, neutral, and objective’ information on food labels in the EU,” the Advocate General says.
Additionally, Advocate General Capeta also provided conclusions on other issues, including the maritime fishing agreements and the expansion of customs preferences between the European Union and Morocco, which were annulled by the Court in September 2021.
In her conclusions on the maritime fishing agreement between the EU and Morocco, the Advocate General emphasizes the need to reject the appeal filed by the European Council, as it did not consider “the Western Sahara territories and the waters adjacent to them as separate and distinct from the Moroccan territories,” thus “failing to respect the right of the Western Saharan people to self-determination. Therefore, this situation contradicts the principle of self-determination laid down by the Court in its historic judgment of December 21, 2016,” the Advocate General says.
Regarding the issue of expanding customs preferences, the Advocate General points out that the Sahrawi people, as the right holders of self-determination and independence, legally enjoy personality under international law. She recognizes the right of the Polisario Front to take legal actions “to defend the regional safety of Western Sahara,” without rejecting the action.
It is noteworthy that the Advocate General’s opinion is not binding, but judges usually follow her recommendations in the vast majority (about 80%) of cases. The final judgment will be pronounced within months.
Polisario Makes Progress in Recognition of Sahrawi People’s Right to Self-Determination
The Polisario Front stated in a press release, following the Advocate General’s conclusions before the European Court of Justice on Thursday, March 21, regarding the issue of natural resources, that it has made significant progress in recognizing the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and independence.
The press release noted that the Advocate General Capeta issued a set of conclusions on issues related to the right to self-determination and independence of the Sahrawi people, the Sahrawi origin of agricultural products from the occupied Western Sahara, fisheries agreements, and the extension of preferential treatment between the EU and Morocco, which the court annulled in September 2021.
The Polisario Front clarified in its statement that regarding the origin of agricultural products (Case C-399/22), the Advocate General concluded that, considering the separate and distinct situation of the Sahrawi territories, under the right to self-determination, “watermelons and tomatoes from the Western Sahara region should include a reference to the ‘country of origin’ reflecting their origin from this region, and these products cannot indicate Morocco as the country of origin.”
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