The Spanish opposition to question the Minister of Agriculture on the fisheries agreement

Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Environment Luis Planas is expected to appear before the congress of deputies to explain the new fisheries agreement reached by the European Commission and Rabat in July, says Europa Press on Monday.

This initiative comes as Unidos Podemos, formerly known simply as Podemos–IU, a left-wing electoral alliance formed by Podemos, urged the Minister to provide explanations on the treaty at the parliament’s lower house. Unido Podemos’s request was supported by other political parties, including the Republican Left of Catalonia, PPeCAT and PNV and Cuidadanos.

According to the same source, the spokesperson for En Marea, a political alliance integrated by Podemos, Anova, United Left of Galicia in Spain, regretted the fact that «while denying Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara waters in Spain, complying with the Court of Justice of the European Union’s ruling, we do not refer to the rights of Sahrawis».

On the other hand, deputy spokesperson for the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Felipe Jesus Sicilia stressed that the Saharawi population should be consulted on the possibility of fishing in these waters.  

For the record, Morocco and the European Union (EU) initialed, on July the 27th in Rabat, the new fisheries agreement after a series of negotiations that started in April.

The signing of this agreement comes as the 2014 fisheries protocol expired in July the 14th, prohibiting EU vessels from fishing in the Moroccan waters.

Negotiations, held to ratify a new treaty and overcome the obstacles set by a ruling issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in February, 2018, and that excluded the Western Sahara waters from the agreement, were concluded in Brussels.