Europe can intervene in Sahara solution within Morocco's kingty, European official

A European MP delegation said on Friday that the European Union can intervene at the economic scale to reach a solution to the Sahara issue taking into account Morocco's sovereignty.

"Europe can intervene at the economic scale to reach a solution (to the Moroccan Sahara issue) taking into account Morocco's territorial sovereign," Ms. Catherine Lalumiere, who headed the delegation of EU MPs, told a press conference at the end of a visit to Morocco.

"On the EU side, we are determined to develop a genuine economic policy in the Mediterranean, and consequently with the countries of the Maghreb," said Ms. Lalumiere, a former French minister.

"Europe wishes to reinforce its relations with the Maghreb," she insisted.

The Maghreb countries, namely Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, are grouped in the Arab Maghreb Union, set up in 1989. The Union has been, however, paralyzed mainly because of Algeria's direct intervention in the Moroccan Sahara, politically and militarily backing the polisario separatists who claim sovereignty over the Moroccan Sahara.

Ms. Lalumiere deplored that in the present circumstances, Maghreb-EU cooperation is difficult to consolidate, as long as the Maghreb countries are not united.

In the absence of a genuine regional grouping in the Maghreb, the EU negotiated and signed separate association accords with Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

The accords provide for the creation of free trade areas between EU and the three countries by 2010.