10.9.2018

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 319/16

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(Case T-376/18)

(2018/C 319/20)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Front populaire pour la libération de la Saguia el-Hamra et Rio de oro (Front Polisario) (represented by: G. Devers, lawyer)

Defendant: Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the General Court should:

—Declare its action admissible;

—Annul the contested decision;

—Order the Council to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action against the Council’s decision of 16 April 2018, authorising the Commission to open negotiations, on behalf of the European Union, for the purposes of amending the Fisheries Partnership Agreement and concluding a Protocol with the Kingdom of Morocco (decision not published in the Official Journal of the European Union), the applicant relies on ten pleas in law.

1.First plea in law, alleging a lack of authority on the part of the Council to adopt the contested decision, in so far as the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco lack competence to negotiate international agreements including Western Sahara, for and on behalf of the people of that territory as represented by the Front Polisario.

2.Second plea in law, alleging a failure to fulfil the obligation to examine all the relevant aspects of the present case, in so far as, when adopting the contested decision, the Council failed to take account of the case-law of the Court on the question of Western Sahara.

3.Third plea in law, alleging a failure to fulfil the obligation to examine the question of respect for fundamental rights and international humanitarian law, in so far as it is apparent from the contested decision that the Council failed to consider the question of respect for fundamental rights and international humanitarian law.

4.Fourth plea in law, alleging a breach of the rights of the defence in so far as the Council failed to engage in any discussion with the Front Polisario, the sole representative of the people of Western Sahara, prior to the adoption of the contested decision.

5.Fifth plea in law, alleging a breach, on the part of the Council, of its obligation to execute the judgments of the Court, in so far as the contested decision disregards the grounds of the Court’s judgments in Cases C-104/16 P and C-266/16.

6.Sixth plea in law, alleging a breach of the essential principles and values guiding the Union’s action on the international stage, since (i) the decision denies the existence of the people of Western Sahara in substituting the words ‘populations concerned’ therefor; and (ii) it authorises the opening of negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco in the context of the latter’s annexationist policy with regard to Western Sahara and the systematic breaches of fundamental rights that maintaining such a policy entails.

7.Seventh plea in law, alleging a breach of the right to self-determination, since (i) the decision denies the existence of the people of Western Sahara with regard to the right to self-determination and upsets the national unity of that people; and (ii) it authorises the opening of negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco in breach of the separate and distinct status of Western Sahara and the permanent sovereignty of the people of that territory over its natural resources.

8.Eighth plea in law, alleging a breach of the principle of the relative effect of treaties, in so far as the contested decision denies the people of Western Sahara, represented by the Front Polisario, standing as a third party in EU-Morocco relations.

9.Ninth plea in law, alleging a breach of international humanitarian law and international criminal law since (i) the negotiations, authorised by the contested decision, are being conducted in the context of the Kingdom of Morocco’s annexationist policy with regard to Western Sahara; and (ii) by using the words ‘populations concerned’, that decision endorses the illegal transfer of Moroccan colonists to occupied Sahraouian territory.

10.Tenth plea in law, alleging breach of the Union’s obligation not to recognise illegal situations since, in authorising negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco with regard to Western Sahara, the contested decision ratifies the serious breaches of international law committed by the Moroccan occupying forces against the people of Western Sahara.

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