Made in Western Sahara

A Parliamentary Vote That Exposed Europe’s Fault Lines

There are days when the European Union’s lofty declarations about unity, legality and shared purpose collide with the hard, unyielding realities of power politics. Last week’s vote in the European Parliament on the labelling of agricultural products from Western Sahara was one of those days—a moment when Spain was forced to confront just how little its national interest is defended in Brussels, and how disastrously its own government performs when the stakes involve our sovereignty, our farmers and our strategic role in the Maghreb.

On the surface, the conflict appears technical: how should supermarkets label tomatoes and melons grown in Western Sahara? But this dry, bureaucratic question conceals a far deeper contest concerning Spain’s influence, the balance of power in the southern Mediterranean, and the wider struggle between European integrity and the political pressure exerted by a non-EU state.

The Law Was Clear—But Brussels Chose Politics Instead

Legally, the matter should have been settled. In October 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a definitive judgment in Case C-399/22, clarifying—in language even diplomats cannot twist—that Western Sahara is a separate and distinct territory from Morocco under international law. Therefore, any agricultural product grown there must be labelled, transparently and honestly, as originating from Western Sahara. The Court even emphasised that any other designation would mislead consumers and breach EU rules on origin labelling. The message could not have been clearer.

Yet clarity has never been an obstacle to Brussels when geopolitical convenience is at stake. After a round of discreet negotiations with Rabat, the European Commission drafted a delegated regulation that would allow produce from Western Sahara to enter the EU market under Moroccan regional names—Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra and Dakhla-Oued Eddahab—names that barely any European consumer could recognise, and which elegantly erase the political reality of Moroccan control over a disputed territory. This was not the faithful implementation of a court ruling. It was a political workaround.

A Rare Moment of Cross-Party Outrage in AGRI

When the Commission was summoned before the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on 20 November, the façade ruptured almost immediately. MEPs from across the political spectrum—conservatives, sovereigntists, Greens, even the left—reacted with unusual and forceful unanimity. They accused the Commission of ignoring the Court, misleading consumers, bending to Moroccan pressure and rewriting EU law in the service of a third country.

Their indignation heightened when the Commission’s representative calmly admitted that the derogation from EU rules was the result of negotiations with Morocco, not an attempt to respect the Court’s judgment. She even described Western Sahara as “part of a country,” a formulation that contradicts the position of the United Nations, the European Court of Justice and even the Commission’s own legal arguments in previous litigation.

Given this outpouring of criticism, one might have expected the Parliament to block the measure when it reached the plenary vote.

One Vote Made the Difference—and It Came From Spain

The objection filed against the Commission’s regulation received overwhelming support: 359 MEPs voted to strike down the delegated act. But it needed 360. The objection failed by one vote. And that one vote came from Spain—or rather, from the representatives of the Sánchez government.

Spain’s Socialist MEPs voted nearly unanimously to save the Commission’s arrangement. At the decisive moment, when our country’s interests were on the line, when European law was at stake, when the integrity of the Parliament was being challenged, the Spanish Socialist delegation chose the side of Rabat and Brussels, not the side of Spain.

The contrast with the rest of Spain’s political representation in Europe could not have been clearer. The MEPs of Vox within the Patriots for Europe group, the Partido Popular within the European People’s Party, and the Spanish representatives of the European Conservatives and Reformists—MEPs Nora Junco and Diego Solier—stood firmly for Spain’s strategic interests. Their votes defended our farmers, our legal order and our geopolitical position in the Maghreb. In that moment, they became the only Spanish voices willing to say in Brussels what every Spaniard already knows: Europe’s decisions on Morocco matter intensely, and Spain must not be treated as an afterthought.

Spain’s Longstanding Interest in the Maghreb

To grasp the importance of this vote, one must understand Spain’s enduring national interests in the region. As a Mediterranean power with deep historical, cultural and political ties to Western Sahara, Spain has every reason to maintain influence in territories that once shaped its southern frontier. More importantly, Spain has an inherent strategic interest in counterbalancing Morocco’s growing assertiveness. The Moroccan state has repeatedly shown that it will use migration flows, diplomatic pressure and economic leverage to advance its objectives. A stronger, more autonomous Western Sahara dilutes Moroccan domination of the region and expands Spain’s room for manoeuvre. This has always been Spain’s geopolitical logic—until the current government abandoned it.

The EU’s Structural Problem: Member States and Third Countries Do Not Compete on Equal Terms

What happened in Brussels also reveals a deeper dysfunction in the European Union. We are constantly encouraged to believe that the EU acts on the basis of principles, impartiality and shared interests. But the moment national priorities clash, European idealism evaporates. France, whose diplomatic and security relationship with Morocco is long-standing and deeply entrenched, exerted its traditional influence. The Commission, acutely sensitive to Paris and eager to preserve cooperation with Rabat, aligned itself with that position. Spain, under its current leadership, failed even to try to assert itself.

And let us be clear: France is entirely within its right—indeed, within its duty—to pursue its own national interest in the Maghreb. No French leader, left or right, has ever pretended otherwise. That is precisely why French conservatives and patriots voted against Spanish conservative and patriots. The problem is not that France defends its strategic priorities, but that these competing national agendas inevitably collide, placing a hard ceiling on European integration and exposing the limits of Brussels’ political project. When Member States pull in opposite directions, the EU ceases to function as a Union and reverts to being an arena of competing sovereignties. What makes this case particularly troubling for Spain is that our own government is not defending the Spanish national interest at all; it has instead aligned itself with an EU institutional culture that acts as though Spain’s electorate is secondary to the preferences of the Commission—and, by extension, to the interests of Rabat and Paris.

This is the uncomfortable truth: when the EU had to choose between Morocco and Spain, it chose Morocco. When it had to choose between legal integrity and political convenience, it chose convenience. And when Spain needed a government that understood the strategic implications of the issue, it found itself unrepresented.

A Vote Lost by One, A Lesson Etched in Stone

The objection may have failed by a single vote, but the political meaning of the episode could not be clearer. Spain has permanent interests in the Maghreb that demand strength, continuity and seriousness. A government that refuses to defend those interests abandons more than a policy—it abandons Spain. And a European Union that allows third countries to shape internal rules at the expense of one of its own members undermines its own credibility.

Yet there is cause for hope. Spain is not without defenders. In Brussels, it was our conservative representatives who stood for our sovereignty and our strategic place in the Mediterranean. They understood what the government refuses to acknowledge: Spain cannot afford to be a passive spectator in its own geopolitical environment.

Spain deserves a government determined to defend its role in the Maghreb. Europe deserves institutions that defend Europeans, not third countries. Until that day arrives, Spain’s conservatives —or, better yet, patriots, for it is no prerequisite to be a conservative to be a patriot— in the European Parliament and at home will remain the guardians of our national interest.