Brussels (Belgium), 11 December 2025 (SPS) – The Advisor to the President of the Republic in charge of Natural Resources and Legal Affairs, Ambassador Oubi Bushraya Bashir, emphasized that the new trade agreement signed between the European Union and Morocco regarding the plundering of Western Sahara’s resources constitutes “a flagrant violation of the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination” and “a serious breach of the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union issued in October 2024.”
The Sahrawi diplomat made these remarks during a political conference hosted yesterday, Wednesday, at the European Parliament under the title: “The Political Implications of the EU–Morocco Trade Agreement on the Future of the UN-Led Peace Process in Western Sahara.” The conference was organized on the sidelines of the mass demonstration held by the Sahrawi diaspora in Europe in front of the Parliament building to denounce what they described as the “plundering of the region’s natural resources.”
Ambassador Oubi Bushraya affirmed that the European Commission has consistently justified these agreements as being “purely economic” and intended to “develop the region of Western Sahara.” However, he stressed that these are “false arguments that conceal an unmistakable political nature,” adding that the agreements “provide Morocco with financial resources used to entrench its illegal military occupation and impose a fait accompli at the expense of the fundamental rights of the Sahrawi people.”
The Sahrawi diplomat pointed out that any talk about a purely economic character “ignores the direct impact of these agreements on the elements of self-determination, particularly permanent sovereignty over natural resources and the territorial unity that the agreements attempt to forcibly integrate into Moroccan territory.”
He also recalled the origins of these policies, stating that “the current agreements are closely linked to the illegal Madrid Tripartite Agreements of 1975,” adding that these agreements resulted in “long-term secret deals that allowed Spain to continue exploiting Sahrawi resources in coordination with Morocco.”
He clarified that Spain’s accession to the European Economic Community in 1986 led to “the integration of the economic dimension of the Madrid Agreements into European partnership programs,” making “the relationship between that old conspiracy and what is happening today direct and deeply intertwined.”
He added that the inclusion of the territory in EU–Morocco agreements “directly undermines the Sahrawi people’s right to determine the final status of the territory and provides Morocco with a basis to promote its policy of imposing a fait accompli.”
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