European parliament approves updated eu Morocco air deal excluding western Sahara

The law stands firm, yet its application wavers. The recently revised aviation accord between the European Union and Morocco explicitly excludes Western Sahara—yet EU airlines continue operating flights to the territory, ignoring this exclusion.

On July 8, 2026, the European Parliament endorsed the protocol updating the Euro-Mediterranean aviation agreement following Croatia’s accession to the EU.

The revised deal passed with a decisive 625 votes in favor, 16 against, and 20 abstentions.

The protocol serves a purely technical purpose, adjusting the agreement to reflect Croatia’s EU membership without altering the accord’s territorial scope.

While the vote highlighted divisions over how the EU should handle the agreement’s practical implications, many lawmakers backed the protocol precisely because it maintains the status quo—aligning with EU jurisprudence and repeated Commission statements that the deal does not extend to Western Sahara.

A handful of deputies opposed the measure, arguing that despite the accord’s limitations, the Commission has failed to prevent EU airlines from operating flights to the occupied territory outside the agreement’s legal framework. This oversight creates a troubling gray area under both international and EU law.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has consistently ruled that EU-Morocco agreements apply only within Morocco’s internationally recognized borders unless Western Sahara’s people consent. In 2018, the Court clarified that the aviation accord cannot be interpreted as covering Western Sahara.

The European Commission has repeatedly affirmed this stance, instructing EU carriers that the EU-Morocco aviation deal “does not apply to routes connecting an EU member state to Western Sahara.”

Despite this unambiguous legal guidance, several European airlines persist in running flights to airports in occupied Western Sahara. Ryanair, for instance, launched routes linking EU airports to Dakhla, though these operations fall outside the EU-Morocco aviation framework. Beyond Ryanair, at least three other carriers have operated flights to Western Sahara in recent years, including Transavia (a KLM-Air France subsidiary), Air Arabia (UAE), and Binter Airlines (Spain). Attempts to seek clarification from KLM-Air France and Air Arabia have gone unanswered.