Statement
by Mr. Ramtane LAMAMRA,
Minister
of Foreign Affairs
and
the National Community Abroad
on
the cancellation of the agricultural and fisheries agreements
concluded
between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco
The Court of the European Union has just pronounced
the annulment of the agricultural and fisheries agreements concluded between
the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco, based on the principle of
self-determination and the requirement of the consent of the people of Western
Sahara through the free expression of its legitimate representative, the
Polisario Front.
This is a decisive victory for the legitimate cause
of the Saharawi people. Firstly, through the recognition of the representativeness
of the Polisario Front by the highest judicial authority of the European Union,
which gives it the capacity to act before the Court of the Union. Secondly,
through the cancellation of the two agreements concluded in violation of the
obligation to obtain the free and genuine consent of the Saharawi people, which
derives directly from the separate and distinct status of the territory of
Western Sahara as a territory eligible for self-determination in accordance
with international law.
This major double breakthrough enshrined in European
jurisprudence, constitutes a historic achievement that will henceforth
conclusively on all the member countries of the European Union and its
institutions in their relations with Morocco as an occupying State. This sentence
also opens a new stage in the struggle of the people of Western Sahara for the
exercise of their absolute and non-negotiable right to self-determination. In
the sense that it constitutes a certain reference point for the International organisations
involved in the search for a solution to the Western Sahara conflict that guarantees
the right of the Saharawi people to autonomy. In line with the status of
Western Sahara, represented by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as a
founding member of the African Union, this new legal consecration of its
international personality has the defining effect of reducing to nothing the
expansionist pretensions of the Kingdom of Morocco.
At the same time, this verdict of the European Court
of Justice indicates to the United Nations Security Council the path that the
completion of the Decolonization of Western Sahara must imperatively follow.
Faced with an illegal occupation of Sahrawi territories and the uncontrolled
exploitation of natural resources over which the people of Western Sahara have
exclusive and permanent sovereignty, the Security Council is more than ever
called upon to engage its authority in the promotion and protection of the
national rights of the people of Western Sahara.