EU member states at odds with ECJ over anti-Morocco ruling
A growing group of influential EU member states expressed their tacit disapproval with an ECJ ruling that invalidated trade deals with Morocco.
The ruling, described as a “blatant political bias” by Moroccan foreign ministry, annulled the fisheries and agricultural deals between the EU and Morocco because they covered goods from the Kingdom’s southern provinces, the Sahara.
The verdict was based on “factual mistakes” and a wrong analysis of the realities of the ground as the court allowed itself to substitute the UN.
Many jurists have been warning of the ECJ’s judicial activism in rendering verdicts lacking political sensitivity and ending up undermining the EU’s external action.
In this respect, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, along with the European council and the European commission underscored the importance of safeguarding the partnership with Morocco.
The ECJ’s ruling risks adding judicial uncertainty to deals signed by the EU and sovereign states by opening the gates to any malign state actor such as the Polisario to challenge commercial agreements.
Morocco made it clear that it will not enter into any agreement that does not respect its territorial integrity and national unity.
The fisheries and agriculture deals were signed prior to Morocco’s push to diversify its export markets. The ECJ’s ideological verdict in support of the Algeria-backed separatist will speed up Morocco’s efforts to open new markets away from the EU’s judicial uncertainties.
As the EU, a supranational entity, seeks a new role in the international era, it should review the role of the ECJ in its founding treaties or else risk having diplomacy-geared by biased judges transgressing their mandate.
The ECJ ruling in fact vindicates calls by sovereigntist activists in the Union. The proponents of Brexit were right in leaving a Union where judges, with a distorted view of reality, undermine the sovereignty of nation states.
