The different positions expressed in Europe during the 9th round of informal negotiations on the Western Sahara were coldly received by the Polisario leadership in Tindouf.
The last declaration which has made the Polisario furious was the one of the European Parliament’s. President. For Martin Schulz, “the European Union wishes to reach a mutually concerted and accepted solution”. The Maghreb, as a whole will be winner to see this conflict settled within a political process, has insisted the president of the European Parliament fully supporting the personnel envoy of the UN, Christopher Ross. The other hard trick for the Polisario leaders has come from the Spanish State Secretary in charge of foreign affairs, Gonzalo de Benito has en fact stated that “there would be no change in the position of the Spanish Government” about the negotiations on the Western Sahara. Things became worse for the Polisario leaders when the Spanish senior executive was pleased with the recent warming of relations between Morocco and Algeria. The Spanish government is “very happy about the evolution of relations between the two parties”, has explained Gonzalo  de Benito.

The new round of informal negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario on the future of the Western Sahara, did not bring any progress regarding the depth of the problem. It is the UN envoy for the Sahara, Christopher Ross who has made this statement at the end of the 9th round which took place between 11 and 13 March, in Manhasset, in the outskirts of New York.
The present delegations, has explained Ross in a release, have nevertheless been able to discuss the issues of mine clearance of natural  resources and evaluation of trust measures.
Concerning the real problem, that is the settlement of the conflict opposing Morocco to the Polisario Front supported by Algeria, Christopher Ross has assured as before, that each party has continued rejecting the proposal of the other party as a unique base for the coming negotiations.

Paris like Washington remains loyal to its position about the Western Sahara issue. The French Foreign Affairs Minister, Alain Juppé who is about to pay an official visit of two days to Morocco, has reaffirmed this Wednesday that the Moroccan autonomy plan constitutes the “unique realistic proposal” for the settlement of the Western Sahara conflict within the frame of the United Nations.
We still think, he stated, that the Moroccan autonomy plan, which is today the unique realistic proposal on the table constitutes a credible and serious basis for a solution to the territorial conflict opposing Morocco to the Polisario Front. In the same context, the American State Secretary, Hillary Clinton, who was last month, on a tour to the Maghreb countries, has, during her passage to Rabat, qualified the Moroccan proposal,  of  being “serious, credible and realistic, while pleading for a mutually acceptable solution.

At the time when the inter-Maghrebian relationships are getting warmer after having been affected by the Western Sahara issue, the leaders of the five countries should show proof of imagination to settle this conflict at their level. This is the idea advanced by Antonin Tisseron, a researcher associated with Thomas More Institute, a think-tank based in Brussels. The on-going revival of the Arab Maghreb Union, he believes, is a “necessity” at the time of the Arab Spring and autonomy remains the “most realistic” solution to the Sahara conflict. “Today, while the war with the Polisario was military won by the Moroccan armed forces during the 80s and that the executives of the movement have tended to become drug traffickers, this solution remains the most realistic to put an end to the conflict”, comments Tisseron.