“The Polisario is not entitled to claim exclusive representativeness of the population of the Sahara,” said the EEAS representative, Nicolas Bulte, at an EU parliamentary committee debate on the Morocco-EU fisheries deal. EEAS governs, under the leadership of Federica Mogherini, EU diplomatic relations with non-member countries and leads the Union’s foreign and security policy. Bulte recalled that an earlier verdict by the European Court of Justice had stated that the Polisario is not entitled to defend the commercial interests of the population of the Sahara. The ECJ chief advocate general had also stressed in 2016 that the Polisario is not a legitimate organization for contesting the Morocco-EU trade agreements, hence the Polisario has no legality to contest Morocco-EU deals. Bulte also pointed to the EU’s principles not to recognize phony states nor to interfere in political processes led by the UN.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 20, 2018 01:41 UTC