Morocco Denounces as 'Biased' ECJ Ruling Annulling its Trade Deals with EU

A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)
A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)
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Morocco Denounces as 'Biased' ECJ Ruling Annulling its Trade Deals with EU

A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)
A bulldozer passes by a hilltop manned by Moroccan soldiers on a road between Morocco and Mauritania in Guerguerat located in the Western Sahara, Nov. 23, 2020. (AFP)

Morocco's foreign ministry said a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Friday annulling its trade deals with the EU showed "blatant political bias".

The court said the European Commission had breached the right of people in Western Sahara to self-determination by concluding trade deals with Morocco.

The ruling contained legal errors and "suspicious factual mistakes", the ministry said in a statement, urging the European Council, the commission and member states to uphold their commitments and preserve the assets of the partnership with Morocco.

Western Sahara, a tract of desert the size of Britain, has been the scene of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute since colonial power Spain left in 1975 and Morocco annexed the territory.

Earlier on Friday, the European Union’s top court ruled definitively that fisheries and agriculture agreements reached between the bloc and Morocco five years ago failed to include consultations with the people of Western Sahara.

In its ruling, the European Court of Justice said that for the 2019 EU-Morocco farm and fisheries agreements to enter force, they “must receive the consent of the people of Western Sahara. However, such consent has not been given in this instance.”

It said the deals “were concluded in breach of the principles of self-determination and the relative effect of treaties.” The Luxembourg-based court dismissed “in their entirety” legal appeals by the EU’s executive branch and the council representing the 27 member countries.

The fisheries agreement laid out where European vessels with Moroccan permits could fish and included Moroccan-controlled waters west of the disputed territory. The four-year accord has already expired, so the court’s decision will only influence future agreements.

The court acknowledged that the EU institutions had launched a consultation process before concluding the agreements, but said this involved people who were present in the territory, “irrespective of whether or not they belong to the people of Western Sahara.”

It noted that “a significant proportion of that people now lives outside that territory.”



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.