Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The Polisario Front has lauded the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) recent ruling, which denied appeals by the European Council and European Commission.
The European Court of Justice ruled that the European Commission had violated the right of people in Western Sahara to self-determination by concluding trade agreements with Morocco.
The Commission stated it would examine the ECJ judgment in detail, while Morocco denounced the ruling.
What does the ruling mean for Sahrawi’s self-determination?
“The consent of the people of Western Sahara to the implementation… is a condition for the validity of the decisions by which the (EU) Council approved those agreements on behalf of the European Union,” the court stated. It said a consultation procedure that took place had not involved “the people of Western Sahara but the inhabitants who are currently live in that territory, irrespective of whether or not they belong to the people of Western Sahara”.
The court also stated that melons and tomatoes produced in Western Sahara must now have their origin tagged as such. “Labelling must indicate Western Sahara alone as the country of origin of those goods, to the exclusion of any reference to Morocco, to avoid misleading consumers,” it stated.
Why did the Polisario front celebrate the ECJ decision?
The Polisario Front is a Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement aiming to establish a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic for the Sahrawi people via the means of self-determination and armed resistance in the complicated territory of Western Sahara.
The Front believes these rulings a “significant victory for the Saharawi people, unprecedented in the history of decolonization.” The Polisario views these rulings as a note to states recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara or sustaining the 2007 Moroccan autonomy initiative.
They are caught as a “response to the actions of certain European states, particularly France and Spain, who believed they could unilaterally alter the territory’s international status.”
While the Polisario did not cite other European countries supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Denmark, the ECJ ruling came at a difficult time for the Front.
On the international scene, the separatist movement is failing ground, especially in Africa. The Front’s exclusion from recent meetings highlights this decline, without eliciting any response from African states. Internally, these rulings may allow the Polisario leadership to silence critical voices within the Tindouf camps, where discontent is growing.
