Basque Parliament: exclude Western Sahara from new Morocco fish deal
The Parliament of Basque country is unanimous: if the European Union is to negotiate a new fisheries agreement with Morocco, it should exclude the territorial waters of Western Sahara from the deal’s geographical scope, in order to respect the rights of the Saharawi people.
In the parliamentary debate on 9 February, all political parties backed a text that calls on the EU to make a prospective new fisheries agreement with Morocco conditional on the kingdom’s respect for the Saharawi’s human rights. The text also urges the European institutions to negotiate with the Frente Polisario if the Union wishes to have access to the waters off Western Sahara.
Furthermore, the Basque Parliament appealed to both the central Spanish government and the European Union to support the United Nations in pursuing a solution that is “just, lasting and in line with international law” for the difficult decolonisation of Western Sahara, based on the right to self-determination through the conduct of a referendum.
The text was an initiative of UPyD, but gathered immediate support from all other groups, including the partido popular and the socialist party.
The EU considers to pay Morocco to fish in occupied Western Sahara. An EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement from 2013 would be both politically controversial and in violation of international law.
The international Fish Elsewhere! campaign demands the EU to avoid such unethical operations, and go fishing somewhere else. No fishing in Western Sahara should take place until the conflict is solved.
