French support for Rabat’s Western Sahara plan tests EU mediator role in region

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday (30 July) that Morocco’s Western Sahara ‘autonomy’ proposal was the only plan able to end a 30-year-long territorial sovereignty dispute, challenging the EU’s historic stance and making it harder for the Union to keep stable relationships with both Rabat and Algiers.

Morocco’s plan is the “only basis for achieving a fair, long-lasting and negotiated political solution in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations [UN] Security Council,” said a letter sent by the Elysée to Moroccan officials on Tuesday and seen by AFP.

This is the first time Macron has so clearly supported Rabat’s 2007 plan, which would provide for autonomous political institutions in Western Sahara under Morocco’s overarching sovereign control, especially on foreign affairs, defence, customs, and currency.

Morocco and the Western Sahara’s pro-independence Polisario Front (PF) have been in an open conflict over this large stretch of desert land along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean ever since the Spanish withdrew in 1975.

Morocco effectively holds economic and administrative control of the region, which the PF has been fighting against, backed by Algeria. A 1991 ceasefire agreement included the organisation of a self-determination referendum, which never saw the light of day, and the PF has always rejected Rabat’s 2007 proposal.

Macron’s sudden diplomatic move, made during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and at a time when domestic politics is at a virtual standstill, with no functional government in place after snap legislative elections, infuriated Algeria, which announced hours later that it had withdrawn its ambassador to France.

It should also test the EU’s top diplomat’s ability to keep both Morocco and Algeria content – as member states are split between support for Rabat’s plan and a call for a self-determination referendum.

Avoid regional power vacuums

According to Angelica Vascotto, pan-European fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank, Paris acted in this way partly to “avoid the development of power vacuums in the region that might cause insecurity-related escalations,” with neighbouring countries with strategic access to the Atlantic Ocean not quite as stable as Morocco.

She said the EU must now act as a “mediator” to keep strong diplomatic ties with Algiers and Rabat – though the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, unlike France, historically supported a referendum, in line with United Nations recommendations.

In 2020, Josep Borrell said that “the final [sovereignty] status will be determined by the result of the ongoing UN process,” including the UN’s Mission to uphold a self-determination referendum (MINURSO).

The UN considers Western Sahara a non-self-governing territory, which it defines as “territories whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government”.

A 2022 UN resolution called on Morocco and the Polisario Front to “achieve a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, based on compromise, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara”.

The right to self-determination of the peoples of Western Sahara was also at the heart of a judgment of the European General Court in 2021 to annul a fisheries trade deal between the EU and Morocco on the grounds that the deal unduly expanded into Western Sahara waters.

With Tuesday’s decision, Paris is taking a different stance than the EU, and siding with a range of other member states that have also spoken in favour of Morocco’s proposal. Spain, the last one to make the move, had to face gruelling consequences as Algeria severed ties and threatened to suspend a two-decade-old trade treaty with Madrid.

It’s now down to the EU, and the likely future EU High Representative Kaja Kallas to walk a fine diplomatic line and keep both Morocco and Algiers content, and bilateral trade relations going.

EU-Algeria trade relations are very strategic, Vascotto said, with Algiers a key mineral products exporter to the EU.

At the same time, Morocco is a stable country with easy access to the Atlantic Coast and abundant fisheries.

Moreover, key strategic minerals – especially phosphate and crude oil – are found in abundance in the Western Saharan desert and on its coast, which the EU might want to exploit.

The European Commission did not respond to Euractiv’s request for comments by the time of publication.

[Edited by Alice Taylor/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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