Western Sahara and the EU’s moral stress test

Last week (20 November), the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) witnessed an unusually tense debate.

The European Commission presented a proposal to modify the origin-labelling rules for agricultural and fisheries products from Western Sahara — a territory classified by the United Nations as non-self-governing, with an unresolved legal status.

Although the proposal appears technical on the surface, its implications run much deeper: it effectively seeks to circumvent a long line of rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ), which has repeatedly affirmed — in judgments from 2016 to as recently as October 2024 — that Western Sahara is a “separate and distinct territory” under EU law, and that any agreements involving its natural resources require the consent of its people.

This proposal is not an isolated mistake.

It reflects a larger pattern in which the commission privileges political manoeuvring over legal clarity in its handling of this long-standing issue.

A personal testimony: 14 years inside the EU’s institutional maze

Since 2011, through leadership roles in Sahrawi civil-society associations involved in agriculture and fisheries, I have engaged directly with European institutions — the parliament, the commission, human-rights units, legal services, trade departments, and permanent representations.

In my early years, I saw the EU through a lens of admiration. I believed it embodied transparency, democratic values, and the rule of law.

But over time, through dozens of meetings and exchanges, a very different reality became impossible to ignore: decisions on Western Sahara are shaped more by the political preferences of certain member states than by the ECJ's binding rulings.

France exerts strong political influence over the EU’s approach.

Spain views the file through the prism of economic interests, fishing agreements, and migration cooperation.

The result is troubling:

EU law advances or retreats depending on the sensitivities of national capitals — not on impartial legal obligations.

Throughout my work, I encountered several structural weaknesses:

• On one occasion, an EU institution was indirectly used to obstruct my participation in a civil-society event in Brussels.

• In another meeting, a senior official insisted that the conversation remain confidential — despite dealing with matters that, by principle, should fall under public transparency rules.

When the Marocgate scandal exposed influence networks operating inside the European Parliament, it became clear that the problem was not hypothetical.

This raises a crucial question: has the European Parliament ever conducted an independent internal review of the EU-Morocco agreements that included Western Sahara despite their incompatibility with ECJ rulings?

So far, the answer is no.

The deeper crisis: This is not only about Western Sahara

This issue reveals something far greater than a dispute over a territory. It exposes a structural tension at the core of the European project:

• between legal principles and political expediency

• between declared values and institutional behaviour

• between the EU as a community of law and the EU as a collection of short-term national interests

In dealing with this file, the commission often behaves less like the guardian of the treaties and more like a political actor attempting to “manage relations” rather than uphold legal clarity.

Such an approach carries serious costs — not only for the people who live under the unresolved status of Western Sahara, but for the credibility of the EU itself.

Europe rightly champions international law in many global crises, including in eastern Europe.

But legal credibility cannot be selective. A rules-based order loses its moral authority the moment its rules become negotiable.

This is not a remote or marginal issue. It is a mirror reflecting a deeper challenge facing the European Union.

The question is simple yet fundamental: does Europe want to remain a union governed by law — or a union governed by political convenience?

The way the EU handles Western Sahara will determine far more than the future of one territory.

It will determine whether the European project can sustain the integrity of its legal and ethical foundations.

Europe will not be weakened by external threats. It will be weakened from within if legal obligations become optional, if court rulings become flexible, and if principles are quietly traded away in closed meeting rooms.

Western Sahara is not a technical detail in a trade annex. It is a moral stress test for Europe — and Europe’s response will reveal the kind of future it envisions for itself.

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