Brussels - The EU-Africa summit, held in Brussels this April 02-03, has frustrated any hope of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi republic to participate in the EU-Africa partnership meeting, by officially and openly barring any entity that is not member of the United Nations Organization.
By excluding the so-called SADR Republic from the summit, the EU-Africa summit, thus, confirms the EU-Africa partnership’s modalities and mechanisms -which only allow participation of the UN member countries, and formally validates Morocco’s participation in all the meetings of the EU-Africa partnership.
Morocco’s activism, supported by several African and European countries, has succeeded in restricting participation in EU-Africa partnership meetings exclusively to the UN member states, as it was decided in 2000, according to Moroccan officials.
Generally speaking, the Brussels summit helped consolidate Morocco’s status on the Euro-African scene and promote the approach advocated by Morocco for balanced, solidarity-based and ever-renewing relations between the two continents.
Morocco, as a founding member of the EU-Africa partnership, is actively contributing to all its mechanisms. Indeed, the Kingdom chairs the Africa-EU working group on climate changes and has actively taken part in all the previous summits and in other specialized meetings of this partnership (migration, governance and cultural goods).
Given the special ties binding Morocco with all African countries and the advanced status it enjoys in its relations with the EU, Morocco plays a leading role in this partnership.