Scenarios after the end of the Morocco/EU Fisheries Agreement

The Spanish government is facing a problem it has neither the means nor the capacity to deal with: the end of the Fisheries Agreement between the Kingdom of Morocco and the European Union, which expires this July.

Voices from the executive branch itself and from the political parties that make it up, insinuate that, having the last word, the Court of Justice of the European Union, which is due to give its verdict towards the end of the year on the challenge to the Agreement still in force by the European lobby in favour of the Polisario/Algeria duo, could be expected to adopt a decision by the Court of Justice, which is expected to give its verdict by the end of the year, one might expect the Court to adopt the same position as the British Court in a similar complaint, which has denied the plaintiffs' request for the annulment of the UK-Morocco Fisheries Agreement, which includes, like the one signed with Brussels, the waters adjacent to Western Sahara. 

The position adopted by London will not be repeated in Brussels, firstly because the Polisario/Algerian lobby in Britain does not have the same strength as on the continent, and secondly because the British judiciary does not depend on domestic political issues as does the European judiciary.

In this perspective, it must be assumed that the European-Moroccan fisheries agreement has ended and that there will not be a new one. 

Under these conditions, the question to be asked in Spain in general and in Andalusia in particular, where most of the 80 Spanish fishing boats that benefited from the Agreement are from, is whether there is a solution to the problem, and if so, which one. That is the discussion that needs to be held and which, it seems, the current government is avoiding addressing in public, assuming at best that it is doing so in private.

The Spanish fishing fleet, first and foremost Andalusian, is faced with a number of possible alternatives:

• Given the end of the bilateral agreement between Morocco and the European Union on this matter, a bilateral agreement between Morocco and Spain may be possible. This obviously clashes with the rules imposed by the bureaucracy of the European Unionist behemoth, but in various EU countries it is being questioned whether Brussels has the power to force EU members to make their national interests dependent on those of the Union. More and more European political forces are questioning whether European jurisprudence should take precedence over national interests. If Spain adheres to this position, we should not rule out a return to bilateral Spanish-Moroccan agreements on the matter.
• Secondly, a scenario can be envisaged in which the protagonists are the Kingdom of Morocco, on the one hand, and the Spanish autonomous governments concerned, on the other, i.e. the Canary Islands, Andalusia and Galicia. Among the prerogatives that the Union grants or should grant to peripheral regions is that of concluding economic and trade agreements with third countries outside the EU, for the benefit of their respective populations. Does this apply to the case of fisheries and agriculture? A question for debate.
• A third alternative is the formation of joint Spanish-Moroccan companies, specifically for the fishing sector, whose explicit purpose should be to fish in Moroccan fishing grounds, whether sovereign or under Moroccan jurisdiction. The field of action of these joint ventures can be extended to other areas of the sector, processing, packaging, transport, etc. 
• Nor should we rule out the possibility of concluding business agreements with third parties so that the Spanish fleet can continue fishing in Moroccan fishing grounds. 

These may not be the only scenarios to consider, but what is urgent, in view of the coming crisis for the Andalusian, Canarian or Galician fleets, is to address them openly.