The EU maintains its common position of supporting the UN Secretary General and his envoy for Western Sahara, insisting that the exit must be in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
The European Union reiterated on Wednesday that its position on Western Sahara has not changed after the France announces recognition of Moroccan sovereignty of the territory as “the only basis for achieving a fair political solution.”
“It is up to each Member State to react according to its own positions. The common position of the European Union on this matter remains unchanged,” said an EU foreign ministry spokeswoman following the announcement in Paris.
This Tuesday Emmanuel Macron He declared France’s “clear and constant” support for the autonomy plan proposed by Morocco in 2007, assuring that the objective is a “durable and negotiated solution in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.”
For its part, the EU maintains its common position of supporting the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterresalready his envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura“to continue the political process aimed at achieving a just, realistic, pragmatic, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution to the question of Western Sahara”, insisting that the solution must be in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
Macron’s announcement is a significant step in supporting the Moroccan autonomy plan over the Sahara. Earlier this year, Rabat expressed its wish that France would go a step further in its stance and align itself with Spain after the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchezhe said in a letter to Mohammed VI in March 2022 that the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara is “the most serious, credible and realistic basis” for a solution to the conflict.
Western Sahara is busy currently mostly controlled by Morocco, which calls it its Southern Provinces, although Moroccan sovereignty is not recognized by the United Nations and is rejected by the Polisario Front, which declared its independence in 1976, creating the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, recognized to date by 82 states, of which 51 have frozen or cancelled their relations with it. It administers the region to the east not controlled by Morocco, which it calls the Free Zone or Liberated Territories.
In 1991, both parties signed a ceasefire before the UN in order to prepare for the celebration of self-determination in which the Sahrawi population could decide their future. However, hostilities resumed in November 2020 after Polisario accused Morocco of violating the terms of the agreement following an attack by Moroccan military forces on the Guerguerat post, very close to the southern border with Mauritania. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2021 that the European Union was obliged to “respect its separate and distinct status”.
Source: Eitb
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