The thorny Western Sahara issue which spins out since two decades without solution, stands more and more like a big insurmountable obstacle. All the neighbouring countries are suffering and at the top, the three immediate neighbour countries, that is: Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. Other countries, in the North bank of the Mediterranean, are complaining about the the difficulties imposed by this conflict on their relationships and commercial exchanges with the Maghreb countries and on the security of their interests and investments in the region. Without talking about precarious and extremely serious life conditions of thousands of Moroccan Sahrawis sequestrated since 36 years, against their will, in Tindouf camps in the South-West of Algeria. It is to denounce this statu quo, that the voices of NGOs and personalities are so numerous to erupt from all sides in the old continent.

The last one to tackle this issue is the Austrian Member of the European Parliament Hannes Swoboda, Chief of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament who has called the European Chamber to help and to make progress the negotiations so as to find a political solution to the Sahara issue through an increasing European commitment and in cooperation with the concerned parties. Swoboda who had negotiations on Monday, in Rabat, with the Chief of the Government, Abdelilah Benkirane, has supported that “the European Parliament should be more committed towards the Sahara issue to reach a fair and manageable solution”. Four days before, and on the occasion of the presentation in Brussels, of a report of Thomas More Institute, a think tank based in Paris and specialized in the geo-strategic issues, an other senior European executive declared that the settlement of the Western Sahara issue, is much more for a regional integration within the Maghreb Arab Union. Hugues Mingarelli, Director General in charge of North Africa and Middle East has reminded at this stage that the EU supports the efforts of the United Nations to reach a fair, political and sustainable solution that would be mutually acceptable for the Sahara issue. These calls find their justification in the efforts of the European Union which tries, since years, to intensify its political, economic and strategic relationships with the South-Mediterranean countries. They happen also some days only from the holding of the 9th round of informal negotiations on the Sahara, planned from 11 to 13 March 2012, in Manhasset, near New York.