Eu parliament approves Morocco air agreement excluding western Sahara

The European Parliament has endorsed an updated protocol to the Euro-Mediterranean air services agreement between the European Union (EU) and Morocco, explicitly excluding Western Sahara from its scope. This decision aligns with the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which has consistently recognized Western Sahara as a separate and distinct territory from Morocco itself.

On July 8, lawmakers approved the revised accord, which extends its application to Croatia—an EU member since July 1, 2013—without altering its core provisions. By excluding Western Sahara, the EU reaffirms its position that it does not recognize any Moroccan sovereignty or authority over the territory or its airspace.

The Sahrawi Working Group on Natural Resources and Legal Affairs hailed the Parliament’s vote, calling it a major legal and political victory. In a statement, the group emphasized that the formal exclusion of Western Sahara from the updated EU-Morocco air treaty represents “an undeniable recognition of Sahrawi sovereignty”.

“By strictly confining the treaty to Morocco’s internationally recognized borders, the European Parliament has once again confirmed that Western Sahara is a separate territory over which Rabat exercises no administrative or sovereign control,” declared Oubi Bouchraya Bachir, the group’s president.

The Working Group, tasked with safeguarding national heritage and legal concerns, noted that this legislative move reinforces the international legal boundary between Western Sahara and Morocco.

Meanwhile, the Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) praised the Parliament’s decision, clarifying that while the protocol is a technical update to accommodate Croatia’s EU accession, it “does not alter the territorial scope of the aviation agreement”.

The Observatory reiterated the CJEU’s 2018 ruling, which stipulated that EU-Morocco agreements cannot apply beyond Morocco’s internationally recognized borders. “The Court concluded that the air agreement cannot be interpreted as extending to Western Sahara,” the group stated. The European Commission has also consistently upheld this interpretation, instructing EU carriers that the agreement “does not cover flights connecting EU member states to Western Sahara”.