The “polisario” had filed in 2014, an appeal before the court of the European Union. On July 19, he issued an order dismissing the appeal. It denies the applicant standing. It also notes that “the waters adjacent to this territory [Sahara, Ed] do not fall within the respective territorial scope of this agreement and this protocol”, which obviously recalls the previous ruling [of the Court of Justice, not court] on the agricultural agreement.
These different considerations are no longer of consequence. On the one hand, the attacked fishing agreement ended on 14 July. On the other hand, the agricultural agreement and the fisheries agreement are being adapted to take into account the decisions of the EU Justice.
Here is what the court writes in its conclusions:
“(…) Accordingly, it must be held that the applicant can not, in any event, be considered, having regard to the arguments he puts forward, as having standing to bring proceedings, within the meaning of Article 263, fourth paragraph, TFEU, in order to annul Decision 2013/785 (see paragraph 43 above), so that the action must be dismissed as inadmissible in so far as it is brought against it. (…)
“The action must therefore be dismissed as inadmissible in its entirety, without the need for a specific ruling on the admissibility of the adaptation of the application (see paragraphs 31 to 33 above)”.
Contacted by Médias24, Fisheries Minister Aziz Akahnnouch, considers this a new victory for Morocco since:
1. the action is dismissed in its entirety.
2. In any case, the impugned agreement ended on July 14, 2018, five days before the court order, dated July 19.
3. the court remains in line with the first motivations already expressed by the Court of Justice, whose two agricultural and fisheries agreements are now taken into account.
4. the agreement in substance, therefore remains valid.
5. the “polisario”, again, does not have standing to act in this case, according to the terms of the court.
6. It is therefore a victory for Morocco and I recall that we have included explicit and formal references to the territories of our southern provinces to the two agreements, agricultural and fisheries “.