Madrid, 13 July 2025 (SPS) – The European Union's (EU) weather program "Copernicus" has updated its maps to distinguish Western Sahara from Morocco, after previously displaying them as a single territory. This correction follows a complaint by the Spanish newspaper El Independiente.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) confirmed the change to the Spanish daily, stating that "the issue had already been addressed in specific data visualizations, and a dotted line now marks the territory of Western Sahara."
CAMS acknowledged being aware of the technical issue, which also affected Spain’s National Meteorological Agency (AEMET), as it uses Copernicus’ mapping system as one of its references.
"We are aware of this problem and are working to resolve it. The graphic libraries of the software we use to generate data visualizations do not automatically account for the necessary separation of Western Sahara," the service had previously admitted.
However, CAMS collaborated with its software provider to fix the issue. The solution has now been implemented, with a dotted line clearly separating Western Sahara from Morocco.
In October 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE) once again reaffirmed the "separate and distinct" status of Western Sahara from Morocco.
The Court reiterated that "under international law, Western Sahara has its own separate and distinct status." This position has been consistently upheld by both the EU General Court and the CJUE in various rulings since 2015.
In April, "El Independiente" criticized the fact that the Spanish Meteorological Agency was using maps on its social media accounts that included Western Sahara as part of Morocco.
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