‘Imagine if someone kicked down your front door, moved into your house, locked you in the cellar and sold your belongings,’ says Lamine Baali, representative of Western Sahara’s liberation movement, the Polisario Front. ‘This is what the Moroccans are doing in Western Sahara, with the help of the EU.’ Speaking on the eve of the expiry of the Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Morocco, Baali is adamant that the agreement should not be renewed in its present form. Signed in 2006, it controversially granted licences to 119 EU vessels – predominately Spanish – to fish the waters off Western Sahara’s 1,100-kilometre coastline. But disagreements over the ethics and legality of fishing Western Saharan waters have meant that renewal of the accord, at least in the short-term, will not happen, and from 1 March fishing boats under European flags will have to leave the area.
With Western Sahara’s vast mineral resources and rich sea resources – which the EU has paid Morocco $49 million to fish – it is easy to see why Morocco maintains an occupation that has lasted over 35 years and is reluctant to cede control. But the failure to renew the fisheries agreement demonstrates a growing sense of unease at the exploitation of the territory’s resources.
