(Ecofin Agency) - The European Union Parliament announced that it elaborated new preferential trade tariffs on imports from Western Sahara.

According to a release published by the institution, the new measure, adopted by 444 votes for, 167 against and 68 abstentions, will help reduce tariffs in Western Sahara to the same level as in Morocco.

“The [local] Sahrawi people have the right to develop while awaiting a political solution”, a member of the parliament said.

This preferential tariff is elaborated months after the dispute between Morocco and the European Union whose court of justice was prohibiting the implementation of a fishing agreement to the Sahrawi because it could not be held that the term “territory of the Kingdom of Morocco” encompasses the western Sahara.

For years now, Morocco has been demanding the sovereignty of the Sahrawi while the region is on the United Nations list of Non-Self Governing Territories.

The new agreement plans for products from the region to be clearly tracked “to make sure the benefits of the lower tariffs go to the local population".

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou