An amended agreement was signed in November 1995. The financial compensation now amounts to €355 million, a substantial part of which is intended for the development of the industrial fishing sector, marine research and the training of Moroccan fishermen. “Neither the Fisheries Agreement nor its Protocol are applicable to the waters adjacent to the territory of Western Sahara,” the previous court decisions said. The EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA) is a fisheries agreement between the European Community (EC) and Morocco that allows European fishing vessels to fish off the coast of Morocco. The Fisheries Partnership Agreement allows Community vessels from 11 Member States to fish in Moroccan waters and can be considered one of the most important fisheries agreements in the EC. It was signed on 28 July 2005 and 22 July 2005. May 2006 and entered into force on 28 February 2007. The agreement expires on 27 February 2011. [1] The European Union`s highest court on Wednesday annulled the 27-nation bloc`s approval of agricultural and fisheries agreements that allow Morocco to export goods from Western Sahara. The annulled agreements between the European Union and Morocco were intended to extend the scope of a trade agreement and a fisheries agreement to the occupied territory of Western Sahara.
Morocco will lose €52 million ($60 million) a year for four years due to the cancellation of the fisheries agreement. The original pact would have allowed 128 vessels from 11 EU countries to fish in the waters off the West African coast. Ninety-two of these ships are Spanish. The current EU-Morocco Partnership Agreement on sustainable fisheries, with a four-year monetary value of €208 million (€241 million). USD) came into effect on July 18, 2019 and will be automatically renewed. The first implementing protocol of the agreement has a duration of four years and covers the period from 18 July 2019 to 17 July 2023. The compatibility of the Agreement with international law has been the subject of two legal opinions drawn up by the legal services of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Parliament`s opinion has been published (albeit partially), while the Council`s opinion has not yet been published. [2] For the above reasons, Milano states that “the JPA may be declared invalid insofar as it aims to create international rights with regard to the exploitation of fishing in the waters of Western Sahara”. This would mean that the EU cannot rely on the JPA to apply for fishing licences in the waters of Western Sahara, that Morocco cannot refuse to allow the EU to complain about fishing behaviour in the waters of Western Sahara and that the EU cannot reject the FPA as binding for the future management of Western Sahara. [14] The first fisheries agreement between the EC and Morocco was signed in 1988. The 4-year agreement provided for 800 annual licences for Spanish and Portuguese trawlers and contained no restrictions on quantity or species.
In return, Morocco received €282 million. As regards the question whether the obligation of non-recognition also binds international organisations, they and States are bound by such an obligation of non-recognition[15], and the Court of Justice of the European Communities has recognised that the Community is bound by customary international law. [16] Although member States have no subsidiary responsibility for the actions of an international organisation within their exclusive area of competence, they have a separate responsibility for the breach of their obligations when acting in intergovernmental bodies with regard to their individual conduct at the time of voting. In the case of the JPA, any exception in good faith would be rejected, as the EU institutions are clearly not prepared to explicitly exclude Western Sahara from the geographical scope of the agreement. [2] The decision could damage the EU`s relations with Morocco, although the Court said the effects of the 2019 agreements would be maintained over a period of time “in order to preserve the European Union`s external action and legal certainty with regard to its international obligations”. The accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986 gave the EC exclusive competence in fisheries matters, including in its external relations. The Court`s decision was widely expected as it reflects previous decisions. In 2016 and 2018, the Court stated that previous versions of the trade and fisheries agreements only applied to Morocco and not to resource-rich Western Sahara. According to Enrico Milano, the validity of the Agreement on the Waters of Western Sahara is envisaged because Morocco has no sovereignty over this territory, is not an administrative power and its presence finds no other legal justification (e.B the consent of the former administering power Spain, the UN Security Council or the Saharawi people). On Wednesday 29 September, the General Court of the European Union annulled two agreements between the EU and Morocco that applied to Western Sahara occupied by Morocco. The court ruled in favor of the Polisario Front, which had filed the complaint against the European Commission, the Council and Morocco.
Two previous court decisions – in December 2016 and February 2018 – had clarified the fisheries-focused trade agreement, which had initially been signed before the July 2019 version but did not apply to the semi-autonomous region, leading to the EU decision. . . .