Yearly Morocco receives the equivalent of 350 million Swedish kroner for its fisheries agreement with the EU. The agreement also applies to occupied Western Sahara’s waters, where vessels registered in the EU trawl. Many people, including human rights expert Hans Corell, criticise the agreement and demand tougher conditions when it is to be renegotiated.
“I am ashamed that the EU is so spineless. The EU should not stoop so low,” said Hans Corell, internationally renowned human rights expert and former Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the UN, with regard to the EU’s controversial fisheries agreement with Morocco.
The agreement expires in February 2011 and is now to be renegotiated by the EU Commission.
“The main part of the EU’s fisheries agreement with Morocco refers to the fishing waters offshore Western Sahara. I have searched for regulations that would ensure that the Sahrawis receive a part of it.”
But Hans Corell has not found what he searched for.
The UN considers Western Sahara “a non-self-governing territory” – and is often called Africa’s last colony. According to Hans Corell, it is crystal clear that Morocco does not have the right to extract Western Sahara’s natural resources if it is contrary to the interest and will of the Sahrawi people.
Nowhere in the agreement can a single word be found about Morocco’s jurisdiction being limited by international rights regulations on self-determination.
“It is with sadness that one must note that the EU sometimes is not up to standards either,” Hans Corell commented. He added that the former colonial power Spain “violated its duty” when it left Western Sahara without helping out with the decolonisation. Instead Morocco entered Western Sahara and has remained there ever since.
Right before Christmas last year the EU Parliament’s committee registered its interest in carrying out a study tour to Morocco and Western Sahara. But Rabat answered that they did not have time to receive a delegation.
“We had decided with political consensus that we wanted to visit Morocco and Western Sahara, because there exists political uncertainty as to whether Sahrawis believe that it is a good agreement and whether the agreement is in concord with international law,” EU parliamentarian Isabella Lövin (Greens), member of the fisheries committee and author of the award-winning book Silent Sea, stated.
She thinks that the fisheries agreement with Morocco is “the most flagrant example of how the EU, in conflict with international law, gives legitimacy to an occupational power that sells fish that does not at all belong to it.”
“The tricky part of the agreement is that Western Sahara is not mentioned at all. Because the Greens in the EU Parliament posed a query to the EU Commission, we received as answer that a number of EU vessels are fishing in Western Sahara’s waters.”
The UN Charter makes it possible for an occupying power to sell the occupied country’s natural resources if it is in accordance with the will of the occupied people.
“But the profit should not go into the pockets of the occupying power,” Isabella Lövin stated.
After more than 30 years of Moroccan occupation it is hard to establish who can legitimately call him/herself a Sahrawi. Moroccan citizens have moved to Western Sahara, and the popular vote on the area’s status has been postponed by Morocco.
Isabella Lövin does not hesitate comparing Morocco’s moving of the country’s own citizens into Western Sahara with Israel’s illegal settlement policy on the West Bank. Why has it been so quiet about the Western Sahara conflict?
“It is not an armed conflict. It is located far away. It is a small nation. I was completely shocked when I realised that Sahrawis have been in refugee camps in Algeria for 30 years under the supervision of the UN – and by all the broken promises of popular votes on the status of Western Sahara.”
Sweden was the only country that was against EU’s fisheries agreement with Morocco in 2006. At that time Sweden had a social democratic government. But Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt also calls Western Sahara occupied.
The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Eskil Erlandsson, is hoping for tough demands in the European Commission’s renegotiations with Rabat.
“I have sent a letter to EU’s new fisheries commissioner, the Greek Maria Damanaki. I call for a clarification as to whether the Sahrawi people get a share of the money and the development that the money from the EU to Morocco (37 million euros yearly) may entail. In the Swedish Parliament I have stated that if the Sahrawis do not receive a part of this, then I do not think that EU should have an agreement with Morocco,” the Minister of Agricultural Affairs said.
Is it possible that Sweden once again will be the only EU country to be against a new agreement in 2011?
“My hope is that more countries will be on the side of the local population and the fish,” said Eskil Erlandsson.
The Swedish Social Democratic Party congress voted this autumn in favour of Sweden recognising Western Sahara as an independent state – a decision that will land on Mona Sahlin’s table if there is a red/green election victory in September.
Some observers believe that the EU is more interested in a new fisheries agreement with Morocco than vice versa. An agreement entails demands for access to how the EU money is used. Without an agreement Morocco may sell the fishing rights to Western Sahara’s waters to private trawlers sailing under flags of convenience – and without the possibility of access.
Svenska Dagbladet [Swedish Daily] has applied to Morocco’s embassy for comments.
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.
