Text tabled : A7-0023/2012

  Raül Romeva i Rueda (Verts/ALE), in writing. – (FR) I shall vote against this report. I support my colleague, Mr Bové, when he says that the MEPs who have ratified this agreement today should be under no illusion: this agreement goes against the interests of Moroccan citizens and the people of Western Sahara.

The liberalisation of trade will ruin thousands of farmers, in Morocco as well as in Spain, France and other southern countries of the EU, while putting the water resources of Morocco under threat.

By not explicitly excluding Western Sahara from this agreement, as the United States did in 2004 when they signed an agreement of this kind with Morocco, the European Union is making it a little more complicated to achieve a peaceful resolution of this conflict at the gates of Europe. This lack of clarity from the EU sends a very bad signal to the entire international community.

Nevertheless, I am pleased that, for the first time, the European Union’s trade policy has been debated, and strongly criticised, within Parliament. We have thus contributed to a situation in which a fundamental question – the real aim of trade – is beginning to be seriously examined by the EU.