The Polisario Front, the sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, proposed on Friday to start granting direct fishing licenses for one year to Spanish fishermen, just days before the expiration of the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco, which is illegally expanded to include occupied Western Sahara.
This came during the historic meeting held in Las Palmas, Canary Islands (Spain), between representatives of the Canary fishing sector and the Polisario Front, under the slogan: “Building Bridges and weaving dialogue networks that would unite the interests of the Canary fishing sector and the people of Western Sahara,” during which the expected scenarios were discussed after the expiration of the fishing agreement between the European Union and Morocco on July 17, following the decision of the Court of justice of the European Union in September 2021.
The European Court annulled the two agreements signed between Morocco and the European Union in 2019, following two appeals filed by the Polisario Front in the same year, due to their violation of the decisions of the European Court of justice, especially the decision issued in December 2016, which affirmed that Western Sahara and Morocco are separate and distinct territories.
The Polisario Front, in a statement concluding the meeting, proposed to start granting direct fishing licenses for a period of one year to Spanish fishermen.
The representatives of the Canarian fishing sector and the Polisario Front agreed, according to the statement, on the need to “strengthen communication channels in a way that allows for possible technical solutions that benefit both parties”.
The Canary fishermen described the offer of licenses by the Polisario Front for fishing in the waters of Western Sahara as “remarkable and interesting”, expressing “their readiness to explore all possibilities that will be determined as soon as the new conditions of the applicable legal framework are established, in order to ensure fishing in the Sahrawi territorial waters”.