Marocgate: Makhzen pays well to MEPs to legitimize occupation of Western Sahara, plunder its wealth

By: Hana Saada

ALGIERS– The findings of a lengthy investigation carried out by a French news website referred to the Moroccan regime’s involvement in paying bribes to members of the European Parliament to “legitimize” its occupation of Western Sahara, plunder its wealth and turn a blind eye to human rights violations.

These findings confirmed, once again, Makhzen’s vicious plans to annex Western Sahara via offering gifts and bribes to the MEPs.

The investigation, signed by Maïlys Khider for Off Investigation, affirmed that former MEPs Antonio Panzeri and Gilles Pargneaux (the first in prison, the second targeted by the Belgian Prosecutor’s investigation into the European Parliament’s corruption scandal involving Morocco), have for years been used by the Cherifian kingdom to defend its thesis on Western Sahara, saying; “Rabat’s desire to annex this territory occupied since 1975 could explain the generous gifts of the Moroccan monarchy behind the scenes of the European parliament. On March 2, the European Parliament announced that it was going to take civil action in the Marocgate affair”.

According to the investigation; “the revelations of the Brussels public prosecutor’s office and the Belgian and Italian media on possible acts of corruption of MEPs, and recent declarations by the Belgian intelligence services according to which a “group of MEPs’ (ed.) worked in exchange for support electoral orchestrated by the Moroccan authorities and considerable sums of money paid clandestinely, in cash, by Morocco”.

Based on testimonies from inside the hemicycle, the author of the article reported that during a meeting with Antonio Panzeri in 2015 – when he was a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and of the Human Rights sub-committee — a witness present noted that Panzeri “made a difference between the Sahrawis living in Western Sahara and those who live in the Sahrawi refugee camps,”

Panzeri said, in this vein, according to the website’s source, “It is a problem that needs to be addressed by the United Nations, away from self-determination.” The French website also quoted testimony stating that Panzeri “never considered the possibility of self-determination”.

The investigative website stemming its investigation from a fundamental question: “for what purposes did the regime of Mohammed VI corrupt these MEPs, in particular Antonio Panzeri, with whom the investigators found 700,000 euros in cash? And What interests does Morocco wish to defend to the point of offering such suitcases of banknotes?”, quoted its source as saying that Panzeri was not referring at all to the organization of the self-determination referendum in Western Sahara. Rather, he believes that the alternative to this proposition is recognition of Morocco’s alleged “sovereignty” over Western Sahara.

Further supporting her remarks, the journalist also noted that she has consulted a confidential document dated 2011 explicitly showing how the Moroccan authorities were negotiating with Antonio Panzeri, who at that time held the position of President of the Maghreb Delegation of the European Parliament (DMAG), to better defend their theses on Western Sahara.

The same source explained that these bribed MEPs adopted the Moroccan discourse, which aims to “justify” the occupation of Western Sahara; Throughout the investigation, a common denominator emerges: Western Sahara.

As for French MP Gilles Pargneaux, former first secretary of the Socialist Federation of the North, then MEP from 2009 to 2019, who made several trips to Morocco, Maïlys Khider assured that a source provided Off investigation with the official report of the meetings of the Friendship Group between the European Union and Morocco, which were held between January 31 and February 4, 2013.

In essence, “the report in question shows how Pargneaux used his weight to convince his colleagues of the merits of Moroccan theses, in particular concerning respect for human rights in the kingdom, the transparency of elections, as well as democracy in Morocco,” noted the author of the survey.

In the same vein, the investigation reported how the French deputy was deployed on the ground to thank his “employer”. The writer said, in this regard, that Gilles Pargneaux flew to occupied Western Sahara one day after his decoration, by order of the Moroccan king, with a medal during an official ceremony in the Moroccan Parliament.

Among what this MEP has also done in favour of Morocco is the creation of the Euromeda Foundation in 2018, which claims on its website that it has a “mission to promote a cohesive space between Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa with common and stable prosperity”.

The same investigation believes that the European Union and its institutions have surrendered to Morocco’s agenda, highlighting that some of Morocco’s friends themselves admit that Western Sahara is undergoing “occupation”, pointing out that the European Parliament approved a resolution calling for an end to the harassment of journalists in Morocco last January.

“After turning a blind eye for decades to Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara, the European Commission is trying to demonstrate its economic benefits. A cynical and mercantile strategy that risks being very expensive”, the website published in the investigation’s second part.

“There is just one catch: this business thrives based on arrangements that have been repeatedly denounced as illegal. The international community has never recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, this long desert coastal strip of 230,000 km2 wedged between Morocco to the north, Algeria to the east and Mauritania to the south. As early as 2015, the European judges of the General Court of the EU considered that by facilitating trade, “the Union… risks indirectly encouraging (the) violations of the fundamental rights” of the population of Western Sahara and even “to benefit “. They said it again in 2016, 2018, and 2021… and could do it again in 2023”, it added.

The investigation raised many questions: “Did the Europeans methodically support and finance a policy of colonization, in defiance of international law?