PREVIEW
Ditching its earlier assertion that Western Sahara isn’t part of Morocco, the European Commission has signed a new deal with Rabat
The European Commission has given its formal backing for Morocco’s controlled autonomy plan for Western Sahara, in a major shift of the bloc’s diplomatic stance. At a meeting between EU foreign ministers and Morocco’s foreign minister Nasser Bourita on 29 January, the two sides agreed a joint text which stated said that ‘genuine autonomy could be among the most feasible solutions’ for the territory.
‘This shift reflects the UN Security Council resolution… and it underlines the EU's continued support for the UN-led process to find a sustainable solution for Western Sahara question,’ the EU’s diplomatic chief, Kaja Kallas, said at the start of the meeting (Dispatches 3/11/25, UNSC changes tack, backs Morocco’s semi-autonomy plan). Kallas stated unequivocally that this was a ‘new EU position on the Western Sahara’, and the text was welcomed as a ‘fundamental step forward’ by the foreign ministry in Rabat.
The Commission and most of the EU’s members – Portugal became the latest of a steady stream of European countries to publicly back the autonomy plan in mid-January – are sympathetic to Rabat but the bloc had been constrained by a 2016 statement that ‘Western Sahara is not part of Moroccan territory’. The joint text effectively unpicks that statement.
The European Commission has made no secret of its hopes for closer political and economic relations with Rabat (AC Vol 66 No 25, Polisario goes back to Luxembourg). Its Association Agreement with Morocco gives the Kingdom tariff and quota free trade and access to many of the bloc’s programmes, the most lucrative of which is Horizon Europe, the EU's €95.5 billion research and innovation program.
The Commission is keen to conclude pacts on police and judicial co-operation led by its Europol and Eurojust agencies in the coming months, and Morocco is likely to be the single main beneficiary from the EU executive’s ‘Pact for the Mediterranean’ which was launched last summer. It can expect a frosty reception to this policy shift from Algeria, Morocco’s neighbour and the main supporter of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic whose claims of sovereignty over Western Sahara will be further weakened by this development.
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