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Pro-Polizario Saharawi associations are conducting a lobbying campaign in the capital of the European Union (EU). On Tuesday, 3rd of July, they sent a document signed by 93 NGOs to the European Commission and the EU Parliament, calling European leaders to engage the Polisario in the negotiations held to conclude fisheries and free trade agreement with the Kingdom.
«We ask the EU and its member states to reject agreements that cover Western Sahara and which have not been granted the approval of the Polisario Front, its legitimate representative before the UN», says the document relayed by Spanish news agency EFE.
Through this step, the document’s signatories refer to the rulings pronounced by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in 2016 and 2017, excluding Western Sahara from the application of the Free Trade Agreement.
«Western Sahara can conclude agreements with the European Union without being intervened by Morocco, relying on the same model applied in the case of Palestine and Israel», Mahjoub Maliha, the coordinator of the Saharawi Organization of Civil Society told EFE.
Fighting back
«These associations’ endeavors are part of a new campaign launched Monday, 2nd of July, to influence the decision of the European Union regarding the trade agreement signed with Morocco», a well informed source told yabiladi on Wednesday.
«This campaign is based on the CJEU’s rulings. It is calling its supporters in the European Parliament to vote against the plan, aiming to circumvent the two decisions issued by the CJEU by consulting the Sahrawi population. It also urges the EU to recognize the Polisario as the only legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people», adds the same source.
«In the upcoming days, and as negotiations move forward on the fisheries agreement and the expansion of the free trade agreement, we will see this campaign taking other forms», concludes the same source.
