At the end of October, the European Parliament rejected a request to examine the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on trade in the Sahara during a plenary session. Six months after this setback, its supporters are bringing the issue back to the table. Six months after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings excluding the Sahara from agreements with Morocco, the Polisario's allies in the European Parliament are taking action. Around thirty Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), led by João Oliveira from the Left Group, have submitted an oral question to the European Commission and the European Council, urging them to open direct trade negotiations with the Polisario. According to a Sahrawi media outlet, the response came in the form of a debate on Sunday, March 16. In this new initiative, the MEPs ask whether the European Union (EU) «plans to launch negotiations with the Polisario Front, the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people, to remedy the damages caused and establish a future trade framework for these territories». They also inquire about the «measures the EU intends to take to respect the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination, in line with numerous United Nations resolutions». The Commission Called to Respond in Plenary With this oral question, the European Commission is required to respond during a plenary session of the European Parliament. This is precisely the goal of the initiative's authors, particularly after a failed attempt last October—led by the same João Oliveira—to include the Court's rulings on the agenda of a plenary session. That request was rejected by 254 MEPs, while 189 supported it. Following this setback, Polisario supporters invited a delegation from the Front to the European Parliament on January 28 to discuss said rulings, though without the presence of official EU representatives. The day after this meeting, a senior Polisario official revealed that Brahim Ghali had sent a letter to the Polish Prime Minister. With Poland set to assume the rotating EU presidency from January 1 to June 30, 2025, the Polisario seeks to negotiate trade agreements directly concerning Western Sahara. Notably, around twenty MEPs had already urged the EU in an October 2021 letter to negotiate directly with the Polisario on agreements related to Western Sahara. However, this initiative was not «binding» for Brussels, which had also filed an appeal against the ECJ's September 29, 2021 ruling. The European Court of Justice has given the EU one year to comply with its rulings issued on October 4, 2024. Following the European Court of Justice's December 2016 verdict, it took three years of negotiations between Morocco and the EU to establish the «exchange of letters» framework on February 6, 2019. This mechanism allowed for the signing of new trade agreements between the two parties, including the Sahara.
