Significantly the EU’s top court acknowledges that the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)  is the internationally recognized authority over Western Sahara and thus controls the agriculture and fishing in the territory under Moroccan occupation.

This is a legal victory for the POLISARIO, the ruling party in the SADR who challenges the European Council that acts on behalf of the 27 EU member-states.

It finds the EU did not secure the consent of the Saharawi people before entering into agreement with Morocco.

Polisario representative to theEU Oubi Bashir hailed “a great victory for the desert cause”.

In early 2018 the European Court of Justice ruled that  a fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco cannot include the waters of the Western Sahara.

This dealt a multi-million euro blow to the cash-strapped Kingdom that relies largely on  exports are dagga and oranges. 

Normally, Rabat acts petulantly against challenges to its occupation of the Western Sahara.

It quit the then Organisation of African Unity when the continental body accepted the membership of the SADR.

When Spain treated SADR President Brahim Ghali for COVID earlier this year, Morocco withdrew its guards from the two Spanish enclaves on the African continent.

This allowed Moroccans fleeing human rights violations and economic constraints in their home country to pour into Ceuta and Melila seeking a better life in Europe.

The latest European Court decision is certainly a blow to EU-Morocco relations.

In this matter,  the kingdom is forced to  be circumspect in demonstrating its anger.

The EU is far and away the largest trading partner with Morocco and the largest foreign investor in the kingdom.

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A criminal investigation has been started in the Kingdom where tourism is an economic cornerstone.

Tourism, next to the sale of dagga and oranges to Europe, is Morocco’s biggest foreign currency earner.

So authorities are desperate to find who killed the women from Denmark and Norway.

They were found near Mount Toubkal, the tallest peak in North Africa, about 80kms south of Marrakesh.

They had knife wounds to their necks.

Moroccan tourism suffered a blow when Conservative  MP Charlie Elphicke declared it to be unsafe for British tourists after a 69-year-old constituent Ray Cole was thrown into jail for four months for being in the company of a local suspected by authorities of being homosexual.

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The meeting is designed to reinforce and broaden bilateral ties dating back to the struggle against apartheid.

Abdelkader Messahel has much to brief Lindiwe Sisulu about.

Algeria’s politicians, military and business communities  are undergoing massive power plays  ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The foreign ministers will discuss continental and international matters on which they have common cause.

Foremost among these is their support for the self determination of the Western Sahara which is under illegal occupation  by Morocco.

The Algerian foreign minister enraged his neighboring country last year saying Morocco was using the proceeds dagga exports to buy friends in Africa. 

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There will be many alluring offers from the Kingdom that has a history of making promises that it fails to keep.

Hopefully, as a hard-nosed businessman,  Ramaphosa will see he should put them on hold.

Morocco  is currently looking to joining the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which leading member Nigeria has indicated it will oppose.

Flushed with victory after being admitted to the African Union, Morocco is bent on being seen as a major player in Africa.

Customarily this entails hauling out the cheque book to buy what it wants.

According to Morocco’s state media, King Mohammed VI’s meeting in at the Africa Union European Union summit in Abidjan with President Jacob Zuma was master stroke.

There is considerable historical confusion about bilateral relations between Morocco and South Africa.

Playing fast and loose with the truth, Morocco thrives on such confusion.

It likes to talk about Morocco being readmitted to AU.

In fact is never was a member of the union.

It walked out of the AU’s predecessor, the Organization of African Unity when the continental body recognized the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic which is a country illegally occupied by Morocco in 1974 and held since then in defiance of the United Nations and the very AU it now belongs to.

So it was not surprising when Morocco humiliatingly failed to prevent the SADR attending the AU/EU summit.

According to South African officials there. King Mohammed was surprised at how vehemently African Nations insisted on the SADR being there.

They believe that the king was simply not informed of this by his officials who are afraid to tell him what they fear he might not want to hear.

So Morocco has become a new member of the AU, despite objections by South Africa and Nigeria.

The new continental body is adamant that the status of the SADR, which is a founder member of the AU, is not in any danger.

South Africa continues strongly to support the AU position that Morocco has to end Africa last colonial vestige and ends it occupation of the SADR.

Which makes it amusing that the Rabat regime should talk about upgrading relations with Pretoria.

The fact is, Morocco furiously withdrew its ambassador to South Africa 13 years ago when President Thabo Mbeki’s government finally kept Nelson Mandela’s promise and established diplomatic ties with with the SADR.

The Moroccan embassy still operates in Pretoria, sans ambassador.

There was no talk of readmitting a chief envoy from the kingdom when Zuma saw the king  in Abidjan.

The SADR has not objected to that meeting.

However, those who have followed Morocco’s duplicity over Western Sahara feel the timing was unfortunate.

It drew attention away from the Saharawi diplomatic victory of attending a summit with the European Union by making the meeting the story.

The king will seek to capitalise on this by seeking agreement  to send an ambassador.

Zuma, for as long as he is president, and Ramaphosa when he takes the reins should delay this.

Agreement from South Africa should come only once Morocco has at very least stopped seeking to elbow the SADR out of the AU.

Putting the ever-present diplomatic question: what’s in it for us? simply reinforces the case for playing a little hard ball.

Morocco has nothing to offer South Africa.

The idea of a north-south axis at the two ends of Africa is already being pursued by Algeria and Tunisia.

Morocco is not an economic power.

it diplomatic influence as a haven of stability in the Islamic world is fast being eroded.

This leaves it with nothing more on the table that oranges, dagga and bit of tourism.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime lists Morocco as the largest dagga exporter on the planet.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency calls it the largest supplier of dagga to Europe.

Hardly worth selling one’s principles for.

So, hamba kancane, Mr President.

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Morocco is steaming ahead with its plan to join the African Union.

King Mohammed VI is bent on achieving this at the AU summit next month.

He’s not a man accustomed to being told: no.

His officials have told him that joining requires a majority of AU members, and they are confident of attracting this.

So, the King is visiting as many African capitals as possible to make the case for his country joining the family.

Sometimes he gets ahead of himself. He told the Zambians, for example, what date he was planning to arrive.

They responded that they would let him know when it would be convenient.

When AU Commission chair Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma told Rabat that joining the body entailed more than merely a question of securing a majority of members, the Moroccan authorities furiously denounced her for blocking their aspirations.

Understanding the AU reservations about taking on this issue, requires looking back at the last time the continental body was seized with the Western Sahara.

Back then it was called the Organization of African Unity and it was a  very different kettle of fish.

Not to put too fine a point to it, the OAU was a cozy coterie of what was fashionable called the Big Men of Africa.

Their word was law. They brooked no criticism.

When King Hassan II – Mohammed VI’s father – invaded and occupied the Western Sahara, he did not expect push back from his African peers.

But for them decolonization took precedence  over everything.

The argument by the Polisario Front – the ruling party in the occupied country – that their’s was a decolonization issue held sway.

The Western Sahara became a member of the OAU 21 years ago and Morocco left the organization in high dudgeon.

OAU members breathed a sigh of relief because the preoccupation with Western Sahara had almost paralyzed its operations for years.

African leaders had tired of Morocco’s broken promises to allow the Saharawi to determine their future by way of a referendum.

When the OAU became the AU in 2002, Western Sahara signed on as a foundation member.

Morocco elected to remain out.

The Kingdom has a lot going for is strategically. For example France and the United States buy the Moroccan argument that  losing Western Sahara will be the undoing of the kingdom that lies as a bastion against Islamist extremism at the very top of Africa.

Economically, Morocco is a chronic underperformer. Its chief exports are oranges and dagga. Legal trade in the former is largely used to cover the illegal transactions in the latter.

Morocco’s claims its proximity to the Gulf kingdom has given it a certain leverage  over investment funds.

It has used this to the full in persuading Africans to let them into the AU.

However that influence has not withstood the acid test.

Morocco told its friends in the Gulf that it would lead an African walk out from the Arab African summit because of the presence of a Western Sahara delegation.

In the event the Africans stayed put. The walk out involved Morocco and a half dozen Arab states.

The real problem when it comes to joining the African Union, is not Morocco’s lack of muscle but its apparent inability to face reality.

Rabat officials insist there will be no price.

Simply put, it means Morocco expects to walk into the AU without settling Africa’s last colonial issue.

Not only will they not deal with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, but they entertain the vain hope that  their AU friends will support  expulsion of SADR.

A number of AU members do not have diplomatic ties with the Western Sahara. But the body’s constitution make no provision for expelling a founder member

The AU has changed radically from the OAU. The country hoping to join the new body  has altered not one jot from the kingdom that stormed out of the old one.

“Letting in this unchanged Morocco would be opening the door to a time bomb”, says Western Sahara ambassador designate  Radhi Sehaiar Bachir.

AU leaders preparing for their next summit have a daunting list of difficulties: DRC, Burundi, South Sudan just for starters.

Are they ready to take on another?

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