Activities of Patrick LE HYARIC related to 2018/0256M(NLE)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT containing a motion for a non-legislative resolution on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the agreement in the form of an Exchange of Letters between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco on the amendment of Protocols 1 and 4 to the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an association between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Kingdom of Morocco, of the other part PDF (635 KB) DOC (78 KB)
Amendments (37)
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 9 a (new)
Citation 9 a (new)
– having regard to the Charter of the United Nations, in particular to its Article 73 in Chapter XI regarding Non-Self- Governing Territories
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas Western Sahara is currently a Non-Self-Governing Territory pending decolonisation according international law; whereas a significant part of the territory is under the foreign military occupation of Morocco and divided by a military wall of more than 2,700 kilometres; whereas access to the natural resources of Western Sahara is one of the keys of the conflict and its exploitation without consent of the Saharawi people implies a violation of Article 73 of the Charter of the United Nations and undermines a political solution of the conflict;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas under Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union the EU and its Member States have the obligation to respect the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law; whereas the article 2 of the UN Charter includes the respect for the principle of self-determination of peoples; whereas under this principle, the Sahrawi people has the right to the permanent sovereignty over their natural resources and to the territorial integrity of Western Sahara;
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A c (new)
Recital A c (new)
Ac. whereas the application of the agreement only to the Sahrawi territory under Moroccan occupation aggravates the division of Western Sahara and contradicts international law, including the fundamental principle of territorial integrity;
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A d (new)
Recital A d (new)
Ad. whereas political, economic and commercial interests can never be beyond the respect and guarantee of human rights and international law; whereas the human rights violations that occur both in Occupied Western Sahara and in Morocco, contravenes the human rights clause, which is considered in legal terms as an essential element of trade agreements ratified by the European Union;
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas the CJEU General Court in its judgment of 21 December 2016 determined that the Liberalisation Agreement did not provide a legal basis for Western Sahara to be included, and therefore could not apply to this territory since Western Sahara is not part of Morocco; whereas accordingly, the Court stated in § 106, that the people of Western Sahara ought to be viewed as a third party to the EU's relations with Morocco and for any such bilateral arrangement to affect the third territory of Western Sahara, the express consent of the people of the territory should be obtained;
Amendment 13 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas paragraph 106 of the judgment states that the people of Western Sahara must be regarded as a ‘third party’ to the agreement – within the meaning of the principle of the relative effect of treaties – whose consent must be received for the implementation of the agreement to the territory; whereas the people of Western Sahara has not given its consent to this agreement, an indispensable requirement for it to be applied in Western Sahara as established in the judgment of the CJEU; whereas this consent that must be expressed through its legitimate representative, the Polisario Front, in application of Resolution 34/37 of the General Assembly of the United Nations;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas on Article 69 of its judgment in the case brought by the Frente Polisario against the EU Council over the application of the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement to Western Sahara, the Court concluded that "it follows from the foregoing considerations that the Partnership Agreement and the 2013 Protocol must be interpreted in accordance with the rules of international law binding on the Union and applicable in the relations between the Union and the Kingdom of Morocco. In this sense, the territory of Western Sahara, and the waters adjacent to the territory, do not fall within the respective territorial scope of this Agreement and Protocol",
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas the Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) claims to have consulted elected officials and public opinion in Western Sahara but most of those officials were elected in elections organised by Morocco in occupied Western Sahara without any legal basis according to international law; whereas this so-called consultation was conducted in Rabat and in Brussels, and not in Western Sahara, therefore making impossible for the Commission to credibly take into account the will of the Sahrawi people;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas 83% of the associations or groups of civil society which according to the Commission were consulted, have complained that they have never been asked to participate, or have not participated, in any consultation process; whereas the Commission has consulted nevertheless Moroccan elected officials and economic operators and four Moroccan civil society organizations;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas a Parliament fact finding delegation visited for two days in September only the part of Western Sahara occupied by Morocco, but not the one controlled by the Polisario Front nor visited the refugee camps were more than 173 000 Sahrawis live; whereas Parliament considered it necessary to go and assess the situation at first hand and gain an understanding of the different views of thewill of the Sahrawi people;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas the modification of the Liberalisation Agreement, which iscan not be considered only of a technical nature, as it takes place within a broader political, judicial and geopolitical context and the exploitation of the natural resources is a key element of the Western Sahara conflict;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas the EU and its Member States do not recognise the sovereignty of Morocco over the territory of Western Sahara; whereas the United Nations and the African Union recognise the Front Polisario as the representative of the people, but neither the EU nor its Member States do of Western Sahara;
Amendment 53 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)
Recital K a (new)
Ka. whereas it is estimated that 92% of the catches made by European fleets under the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement take place precisely in the waters of Western Sahara; whereas under the EU-Morocco Agreement, the fleet of European Union countries has captured 324 584 tonnes of fish in four years, worth more than 300 million euros;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K b (new)
Recital K b (new)
Kb. whereas regarding the fisheries, it is estimated that 83.7% of the catches obtained in the waters occupied by Morocco come from the area of Dakhla, in the Sahrawi waters, being Saharawi less than 5% of the workers in the sector and none work in the port, but precarious workforce, and that in the area 3 188 Moroccan boats operate in front of 312 Sahrawi;
Amendment 58 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K c (new)
Recital K c (new)
Kc. whereas taking into account the judgment of the CJEU of 27 February 2018, only in fisheries the EU has committed a fraud of 95.8 million euros to the EU budget, since the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement is no applicable to the waters of Western Sahara and the European Union has paid 58.8 million euros of access to fishery resources based on this Agreement, and 37 million for sectorial support;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K d (new)
Recital K d (new)
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Recognises the two conditions set in the CJEU judgment, to explicitly mention Western Sahara in the Agreement text and to obtain the consent of the people, as well a of Western Sahara; denounces the third criterion added by the Council which is the need to ensure that it benefits the local population as most of the population currently living in the territory are Moroccan settlers with the Sahrawi people in a minority; condemns that since the Moroccan military invasion of 1975, the Kingdom of Morocco has been transferring hundreds of thousands of Moroccan settlers to the territory of Western Sahara, with the deliberate aim of changing the demographic composition of the population in the territory, which is considered a crime under international law;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. FulUnderlines that in order to credibly supports and fully encourages the ongoing peace process under the auspices of the Personal Envoy of the Secretary- General Horst Köhler, and emphasises that ratification of the amended Liberalisation Agreement between the EU and Morocco has to be strictly without prejudice to the outcome of the peace processthe EU should abstain to ratify any amended Agreement between the EU and Morocco applicable to Western Sahara as it would imply EU support for one of the two parties in the conflict and hinders the efforts of the Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations to reach a political solution; especially when the parties are expected to meet in Geneva under the auspices of the UN in December in the first direct negotiations between the Polisario Front and Morocco since 2012;
Amendment 74 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Takes note of the tensions between different interests in the territory and believes that a respected and accepted end to the ongoing conflict is required to ensure the broader participation of all groups in the territory’Regrets that the European Commission has not so far engaged in a serious and constructive dialogue with the Polisario Front, which is reconomic development; is, at the same time, convinced that the local population also has the right to develop while awaiting a political solutiongnised by the United Nations as the only legal representative of the Sahrawi people;
Amendment 79 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the European Commission to open negotiations with the Polisario Front whenever it wishes an agreement to be applicable to Western Sahara;
Amendment 80 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Highlights the doubts that some Member States, social organizations, the Polisario Front or the European Parliament's Legal Service have expressed in regarding its possible legal and political repercussions of this amended agreement on the exercise of the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people;
Amendment 81 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 c (new)
Paragraph 3 c (new)
3c. Expresses its concern at the fact that the Commission was unable to provide reliable data on preferential imports of products from Western Sahara to support the claim that the agreement is beneficial for the territory, as the Commission recognizes that it is "generally impossible" distinguish Moroccan imports from imports from Western Sahara; highlights that the Commission admits that it can not distinguish between the Sahrawi and Moroccan populations in terms of employment benefits; affirms that, in the absence of sufficient comparative information, it is doubtful that the Commission can adequately assess the impact of the proposed new agreement;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Believes that the EU tariff preferences have had a positive impact on the agricultural and fisheries products sectors and their export levels in the non- autonomousself-governing territory of Western Sahara; (This amendment applies throughout the text. Adopting it will necessitate corresponding changes throughout. Source: United Nations List of Non-self- governing territories http://www.un.org/en/decolonization/nonse lfgovterritories.shtml)
Amendment 105 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Warns of the environmental risks, for example for water resources, entailed by intensive, uncontrolled and export- oriented development of agricultural production in Western Sahara, as highlighted by the European Commission;
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Considers that the partial territorial coverage of the agreement raises questions in relation to the obligations of the EU and its Member States to respect the principle of territorial integrity, which is an integral part of the right to self-determination; in relation to the border treaties between Morocco and Western Sahara; and towards the obligation to respect the “separate and distinct" nature of Western Sahara in relation to Morocco, affirmed by the European Court of Justice, which would require the preservation of the integrity of Western Sahara;
Amendment 137 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Recalls that, since the CJEU judgment, Member States cannot legally apply trade preferences to products from the non-autonomousself-governing territory of Western Sahara and that; regrets that with this new proposal the legal uncertainty affecting economic operators has to come to an end; remains; underlines that Polisario Front has already announced that they will challenge the new proposals to the Court as they violate the CJEU judgements;
Amendment 161 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
Amendment 164 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
Amendment 168 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Calls on the European Court of Justice to issue a legal opinion assessing whether the agreement in the form of an Exchange of Letters between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco is complying with international and European law and with the 21 December 2016 European Court ruling;
Amendment 173 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and, the European External Action Service and to the European Court of Justice.