Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)

I ask the Minister of State to update the House on the position that Ireland will be, and has been, taking to date in relation to the proposed renewed EU-Morocco trade agreement, which is due for decision at the European Council tomorrow. This relates to an amendment of protocols 1 and 4 to the previous EU-Moroccan agreement. The need for the change to the protocols comes from a Court of Justice of the EU, CJEU, ruling in October 2024 whereby the court annulled the application of the previous 2019 EU-Morocco trade deal in relation to Western Sahara because the Sahrawi people had not given their consent to that agreement. The court set a one-year deadline for the EU to bring its actions into line with international law. There has been an entire year for action to have been taken but it is important to look at the timeline here. We have seen no public action, nothing shared in the public domain and no clear consultation until July, when the European Commission produced a proposed negotiated agreement, which was only brought to the European Council on 10 September. Then we were told, with the Commission only given a mandate to negotiate this trade agreement on 10 September, that magically it was all negotiated by 18 September. In one week this supposedly, as we were told constantly, very complex and very nuanced issue which has serious implications for international law and EU compliance with same, was settled.

There are huge questions on that timeline and there are also questions around the nature of the agreement. We have now, in the public domain, the text of what is being proposed and what has been brought to the European Council. We know that the European Commission did not consult with the Polisario Front which is the privileged interlocutor, according to the CJEU and, according to UN Security Council Resolution No. 658, the sole legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people. The Sahrawi people are required to either consent or for there to be demonstrable, tangible benefit for them which does not lead to obligations. Those were the conditions that the court set out but the EU did not speak to the Sahrawi people. We also know that the proposal is that there would be intensified trade with the areas of the Western Sahara that are occupied by Morocco, with no differentiation to ensure that these benefits or additional privileges of trade given to Western Sahara are not in fact just being given to Moroccan settlers and Moroccan companies illegally operating who will now have even further access to the European market on an even more preferential basis. This is literally like rewarding Israeli settlers in the West Bank as a way to supposedly address the fact of the illegal occupation of the West Bank. That is the kind of analogy we are looking at here.

What position will Ireland be taking tomorrow on the signature? Has the Government been engaged in this process? Has the Government sought amendments to the negotiating position that was proposed in July? Did the Government engage with the Polisario Front? Does it recognise the dangers inherent in the EU declaration which will actively incentivise further Moroccan settlement and illegal occupation of Western Sahara? Has the Government encouraged the Commission to seek explicit consent from the Sahrawi people rather than simply saying that it will provide a little bit of humanitarian aid and will give some money to somebody and it might trickle down to them? What has Ireland been doing and what will Ireland do tomorrow?