one hand, at the end of the month end the current agreement on fishing permits to 119 boats fishing licenses European fish in Moroccan waters. Of these, one hundred will correspond to the English fleet. Europe-pay-pay 36.1 million euros for vessels to fish in these fisheries, including the territorial waters of Western Sahara. The latest report says that the European Commission has formally proposed to extend the fishing agreement for one year, time to evaluate and analyze its consequences. Now is the ratification of the 27 states and the European Parliament for a convention more than doubtful whether or not continued in force.
I say dubious because many commentators are pointing to its illegality. Of all the voices that question legal report stresses that Parliament itself determined over a year ago that the current agreement did not respect international law, because the Sahrawi people, whose waters are extracted great wealth, did not benefit from it. The same is expressed, of course, representatives of the Polisario Front to the European Union. If there are doubts that undermine the right of a people and a population impoverished and punished, should not have another position to follow the path of the unknown? If Parliament is correct, it would seem more sensible to halt the deal while analyzing all its implications, and not vice versa.
The opposite has happened with review of the agricultural agreement between Morocco and the European Union, roughly, is the increasing liberalization of trade for food products can flow more easily between the two regions. The International Trade Committee of the European Parliament decided on Feb. 8 to delay the process of ratification of a new framework, arguing that Brussels should be clarified before the legal doubts aroused by the agreement on the territories of Western Sahara, where, as in For fishing, so trade liberalization actually benefits the local population and if these are the real interests of the people of Western Sahara.
For agriculture, besides the legal conflict with the Sahrawi land, where since 1989 and there are foreign firms, such as the French Azura, growing tomatoes under plastic sold in the European Union,'s own studies impact made by the European Commission warned that more trade liberalization in the Mediterranean area will have some big losers. In Europe, especially southern regions specializing in the production of fruits and vegetables, may not face competition from the neighboring Mediterranean and the already reduced agricultural population suffer a new stake. Agricultors Joves Ramaders de Catalunya i already made their first estimates, "Tariffs, for example, be reduced by 30% in citrus orange and Morocco will have an entry price of 0.264 euros / kg, when the production cost of Catalan is 0.514 euros / kg ".
Moreover, in its specialization in these products for export, countries like Morocco will be losing their own food sovereignty to the progressive abandonment of their own productions, which means they are vulnerable to swings in the markets, as we have apparent in the recent crises in Tunisia and Egypt. And again, these agreements also benefit from liberalizing the rural population local. The false myth of exports as a source of wealth is again evident. Morocco and exported to Europe, but they do small farmers but the farmers, investors and exporters -both Maghrebi and European-industrial models that lower costs by reducing jobs, availability of labor conditions misery, exploitation of water resources and observing environmental measures sufficient to ensure sustainability of the soil. 20% of the fertile surface and is oriented Moroccan industrial crop for export, and in so far as to encourage, as is already doing through the Plan Green Morocco, will bring more benefits to their owners, members of the royal family, local entrepreneurs and English and European companies that have moved their production (eg, 80% of Moroccan strawberry export is in the hands of English businessmen.) This will reduce the opportunities for large numbers of small farmers that have been guaranteed so far
food security of local people.
says Abdellatif Laâbi that "Morocco is managed as a multinational company whose purpose is to enrich their unlimited shareholders (...)." If civil society, which does not benefit of these businesses, hits the streets as their neighbors, what arguments will manage the Government of Spain, married to the multinational?
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