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Polisario Front Chief heads to European-African summit

February 17, 2022 at 11:45 pm

Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic President Brahim Ghali (L) arrives for the first day of a European Union (EU) African Union (AU) summit at The European Council Building in Brussels on February 17, 2022 [JOHN THYS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

The leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, arrived in Brussels on an Algerian plane on Wednesday to attend the sixth Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African and European Union.

In late 2017, Brahim Ghali attended the fifth Summit of the partnership between the two Unions in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast Republic.

The participation of the leader of the Saharawi Organisation, which disputes Morocco over the territory of Western Sahara, provoked the wrath of the Kingdom of Morocco, which considers Ghali as its first enemy.

Moroccan MPs, who are members of the joint parliamentary committee between Morocco and the European Union, expressed, on Wednesday, their “great amazement over European intention to allow the leader of the Polisario separatists”, Brahim Ghali, to participate in the sixth summit of the European and African Union.

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The spokesman of the European Union said that the Summit is “organised in partnership between the European Union and the African Union”; he also denied Brussels’ invitation to Brahim Ghali to attend.

He explained that the European Union “cannot interfere in the decisions of the African Union”. However, he pointed out that the Union “does not recognise the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, despite its participation as a member of the African Organisation.”

The Summit, which will be held on the 17th and 18th of this month, is expected to contribute in “setting the basic priorities for the coming years, besides the strategic and political directions of relations between the two continents”, where the two Unions seek to strengthen their partnership with regard the response to the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recovery.