Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 12: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs his position in relation to the proposed UN referendum on the future of the occupied former Spanish Sahara. [39535/06]

Seán Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Question 93: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs his views on the breach of international law involved in the EU granting of fishing and exploitation concessions in territorial waters of the Sahara Arab Democratic Republic. [39534/06]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 12 and 93 together.

The Government strongly supports the right of the people of the territory of Western Sahara to determine their own future. This has been the position of successive Irish Governments. The Government has no view on what that future should be — independence, integration with Morocco or some degree of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty. The essential point is that it be decided in a genuine act of self-determination.

The Government has supported successive efforts by the United Nations to broker a solution to the issue of Western Sahara based on this principle. Following the ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front in 1991, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was deployed in September 1991 to monitor the ceasefire and organise a referendum on the territory's future status. That referendum has yet to be held. In 1997, the former US Secretary of State James Baker, acting as the Personal Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, brokered the Settlement Plan between the two sides, but again this was not implemented. In 2003 he brought forward what is known as the Baker II Plan, which was endorsed by the Security Council in a number of Resolutions. Both these plans involved a referendum to determine the future of the Territory.

One of the chief obstacles to the implementation of these plans has been the refusal of Morocco to accept a referendum in which independence is an option. I regret very much that Morocco has taken this view, and I look forward to the proposals which Morocco has stated it intends to present in the near future. The Government remains convinced that the full exercise of self-determination is the essential principle on which this dispute must be resolved. The Moroccan authorities are fully aware of this view.

The position in relation to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement was set out in detail in my reply to Question No 278 on 20 June 2006. The Agreement was negotiated by the Commission, discussed by Member States in the Fisheries Working Group, and adopted by the Agriculture and Fisheries Council under Qualified Majority Voting. In relation to territorial application, the Agreement used the same language as in previous EU Fisheries Agreements with Morocco, going back over many years.

In relation to the Western Sahara issue, the Government's concerns were that the Agreement should imply no recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory, and that the benefits of any economic exploitation of Western Saharan resources under the Agreement should flow to the people of the territory.

In voting in Council to approve the Agreement, which is of major importance to the fishing industries of a number of partners, Ireland made a National Declaration that it supported the Agreement on the basis that these two principles were respected. In particular, Ireland noted the duty of the EU-Morocco Joint Committee, envisaged under the Agreement, to ensure "that the Agreement is implemented to the benefit of all the people concerned and in accordance with the principles of international law".