The spread of the new coronavirus in the Tindouf camps in Algerian territory is raising serious concerns in the European Parliament, which is wondering what measures the European Commission intends to take with regard to Algeria to protect the populations of these camps under its responsibility”.
This is how the Moroccan press massively relayed the question addressed on April 24, 2020, to the European Commission (EC) on the health situation of the Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf camps, linked in particular to the spread of Covid-19.
The Belgian MEP and member of the Reform Movement party, Frédérique Ries, had affirmed that a cluster of contaminations had been uncovered in these camps, recalling that the pandemic which strikes the whole world does not spare this area pertaining to the Algerian territory.
The MEP added that the responsibility for protecting the populations of the camps, in this context of health crisis, rested with Algeria, which welcomed the Sahrawis on its soil, before asking the European Commission if it was aware of the alarming health situation in the Tindouf camps and what information it had on the spread of Covid-19 there.
Finally, the MEP had questioned the European executive on if it had raised the issue with the Algerian authorities and what measures it was going to take in order for Algeria to guarantee the security of the populations in the Tindouf camps and their protection against Covid-19 in the current difficult health context.
MEP Ries even gives a link, as proof of her comments on the announced contamination of two people at the beginning of March 2020.
The link in question directs you to the Sahel-Intelligence.com website which produces a weekly strategic review on the Sahel zone.
Owned according to the same site by the company GIC CONSEIL (Paris), and edited by Samuel Benshimon, the media addresses questions relating to the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling, armaments and politics in the entire Sahelian zone and the countries bordering it, but it remains a media clearly hostile to Algeria, as can be seen here.
The concern is that the Moroccan press has never revealed that MEP Ries, who is also a member of the delegation for relations with Israel in the European parliament, had used information from Samuel Benshimon, who it should be noted worked as an analyst in the Israeli army for more than twenty years, before leaving it in 1999 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Troubling.
It must be said that the unfavourable theses vis-à-vis the Polisario Front, widely relayed by Sahel Intelligence go in the same direction as another Belgian elected representative of Moroccan origin from the same Reform Movement party (MR) as Ries: Latifa Ait Baâla. The latter, known for her active role in lobbying for the annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco, had organized in the European Parliament a screening of a documentary entitled, “Sahara and Sahel Connexions – trafficking, drugs, terrorism”, that she filmed with her husband Hassan El-Bouharrouti, a specialist in propaganda documentaries and promoter of Moroccan colonialist theses, which the Moroccan authorities finance.
The Moroccan media have equally failed to disclose to public opinion that Frédérique Ries, this former TV presenter dismissed in 1998 by the channel Radio-Télévision Luxembourg Télévision Indépendante (RTL TVI), was the Vice-President of the European Union-Morocco Friendship group.
Is it in the name of this friendship with the Kingdom of Morocco that Frédérique Ries chose to mention the two alleged cases of Coronavirus in Tindouf, one of the areas least affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in Algeria, while omitting Covid-19 cases detected among political detainees in a prison in southern Morocco, which stands at 133 cases according to a report made public on April 23, 2020, by the Moroccan prison authorities? An assessment which comes in addition to the sixty cases previously registered in the same prison among its officials.
In 2017, French MEP Gilles Pargneaux, President of the European Union-Morocco Friendship group created the EuroMedA Foundation, with Alain Berger, partner of the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton and Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah, former Minister and Secretary-General of Moroccan Party ‘Authenticity and Modernity of the Friend of King Mohamed VI: Fouad Ali El Himma‘… And these are not the only Moroccans to sit in this foundation which has an office in Rabat, Morocco.
Furthermore, the vice-president of EuroMedA is Salaheddine Mezouar, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Morocco, Abdallah Saaf, former Minister of National Education of Morocco. They are among the members of the board of directors, as is M’barka Bouaida, former Minister-Delegate of Foreign Affairs of Morocco, who also represents Morocco in the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.
This foundation, which also included the French-Algerian Debah-Khiari Bariza in the list of its administrators, aims, according to its statutes, to put into perspective the specificity of Western Sahara, to promote a Moroccan Islam as a model to defend the image of Islam in Europe while advocating for a lasting and mutually acceptable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
EuroMedA, whose budget is estimated according to credible sources to be close to 20 million dollars, is also collaborating with the OCP Policy Center, a Think Tank created by the Moroccan state monopoly in the chemical and mining sector, ‘L’Office chérifien des phosphates‘ (now OCP Group), in order to influence the European Parliament to maintain privileged relations between the EU and Morocco.
On July 10, 2018, the EuroMedA Foundation organized in the European Parliament the presentation of the book “The Europe-Africa partnership in search of meaning” funded by the OCP Policy Center.
A few months later, it was another conference organized by the OCP Policy Center and the EuroMedA Foundation in the European Parliament on the theme of “The Mediterranean, the keystone of the Europe-Africa partnership“.
In addition to the licensed defender of the Moroccan monarchy: Gilles Pargneaux, there are also Fathallah Oualaalou, former Minister of Finance, former mayor of Rabat, speaker at the OCP Policy Center as well as Mohamed Loulichki, former Permanent Representative of Morocco to the United Nations, and speaker at the OCP Policy Center, who have animated this panel and reduced the strategic perspectives of the Europe-Mediterranean-Africa relationship to their personal assets and royalist ideals.
One should also keep in mind that the EU-Morocco strategic partnership represents a crucial challenge for Europe and includes significant European aid linked to the migration issue and border management which amount to several tens of millions of Euros.
Registered on April 25, 2019, in the European register of representatives of specific interests and supposedly self-refraining from lobbying for Morocco, this EuroMedA maneuver appears hardly credible since this foundation has its headquarters in the Brussels offices of the lobbying firm: Hill + Knowlton Strategies, whose main client has long been the Kingdom of Morocco.
This had also prompted MEP Florent Marsellesi, French politician and activist and member of the Spanish political party Equo, to file a complaint against Hill + Knowlton to assess whether the behaviour of the lobbying firm complied with the EU’s code of conduct and if it was in line with the transparency register of the European Union.
In this intense activity linked to the pro-Moroccan lobby at the European Union parliament and their recent and violent charge against Algiers, it is indeed surprising that the Moroccan media have never mentioned that MEP Frédérique Ries also sits at the Board of Directors of the EuroMedA foundation. And that poses a real problem of conflict of interest.
It should be noted that MEPs must complete a declaration of financial interests and potential participation in any other function, as required by article 4 of the code of conduct for MEPs with regard to financial interests and conflicts of interests.
The code also requires that deputies “make public, before speaking or voting in plenary or in parliamentary bodies, or when they are proposed as rapporteurs, any real or potential conflict of interest taking into account the question under consideration“.
A few years ago, Patricia Lalonde, rapporteur for the European Parliament on the controversial proposal to extend the EU-Morocco trade agreement to occupied Western Sahara, had caused immense controversy within the European Union because she was at the same time member of the board of directors of EuroMedA. A conflict of interest which had been widely denounced by the press, prompting French MEP Patricia Lalonde to resign in November 2018.
Did Belgian MP Frédérique Ries put herself in a situation of conflict of interest, due to her sitting at the board of the notoriously pro-Moroccan foundation EuroMedA, which could unduly influence the exercise of her functions as a Member of Parliament as provided for in Article 3 of the Code of Conduct for Members of the European Parliament in matters of financial interests and conflicts of interest?
Therefore, what sense should be made of the recent attempt by Frédérique Ries in the European Parliament to put Algiers in a poor posture, request action to be taken against Algiers, in particular considering the disturbing information linked to her ostentatiously pro-Moroccan activities? It should also be noted that the refugees in Tindouf are there in the first place as a result of the annexation of their land by Morocco.
Recently, it is 1 million dollars of public funds that Morocco has offered to the High Commission of the United Nations in order to muzzle this international body about its repetitive violations of human rights in the non-autonomous territory of Western Sahara.
That being said, this one million dollar gift did not prevent Georgette Gagnon, director of field operations at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner, of accusing Morocco, on April 27, 2020, of being a country where the disturbing actions of the police to enforce the quarantine measures in relation to the Covid-19 crisis to crush dissent, control the population, and even remain in power.
Regardless of the above, to defend its hazardous political, diplomatic and economic theses and to influence the decision-making of deputies, European commissioners and their collaborators, Morocco, unable to impose its expansionist and predatory vision opposed to international law and to the universal principles of Human Rights, recidivates by using funding from pressure groups and a few elected officials, as has been demonstrated.
The Kingdom targets these European relays for their ability to transgress international rules to the detriment of the Saharawi people and part of the citizens of Morocco … with no qualms!
Tags : Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Frédérique Ries, European Parliament,
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