Since the EU won’t ask them, Saharawi groups have once again been left with no other choice than to contact EU institutions themselves to indicate they do not want the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement applied to their waters.
Close to 100 Saharawi civil society organisations have signed an appeal to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), asking them to vote against the proposed EU-Morocco Sustainable Fisheries Agreement that includes the waters of occupied Western Sahara and is up for a vote in plenary on 13 February.
«This deal has nothing to do with a “sustainable fisheries partnership agreement”. It is not sustainable: to this date, the Commission still does not have any independent data concerning the fisheries reserves in our waters and has relied exclusively on information provided by the Moroccan authorities or the pro-Moroccan industry. There is no partnership: the Commission did not carry out any genuine consultation of our people and it has negotiated with Morocco an agreement, which ignores our interests and wishes. Finally, it is not about fisheries but only about geopolitics: pleasing an illegal occupying force in exchange of its support for the EU agenda on migration or other interests», the letter reads.
The letter was sent to all MEPs today, after Saharawis staged a protest in Brussels in front of the European Parliament. Read the full version below, or download it here.
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Origen: 98 Saharawi groups call on European Parliament to reject fish deal – wsrw.org