After receiving an application from the Confédération Paysanne, the Conseil d'État will not require the French Government to ban the import of cherry tomatoes and Charentais melons harvested in Western Sahara and labelled as originating from Morocco. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that a Member State of the European Union cannot, on its own, ban the import of agricultural products whose labelling does not comply with EU legislation relating to indication of the territory of origin. However, the CJEU has ruled that these products must be labelled "Western Sahara".
The Confédération Paysanne had urged the government to ban the import of cherry tomatoes and Charentais melons harvested in Western Sahara and labelled as originating in Morocco, claiming that this infringed European Union laws on consumer information. Having received no response, the association referred the matter to the Conseil d'État.
Questioned by the Conseil d'État, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled (C-399/22) that a Member State cannot unilaterally prohibit the import of agricultural products harvested in Western Sahara on the grounds that their labels wrongly show Morocco as the country of origin because such a decision falls within the scope of the common commercial policy and the European Union.
However, the CJEU stated that products originating in Western Sahara must be labelled with Western Sahara as the country of origin, and not Morocco, to avoid misleading consumers.
The Conseil d'État ruled that the ban required by the organisation was within the jurisdiction of European authorities, and that the ministers for the economy and agriculture had no legal authority to ban the import of cherry tomatoes and Charentais melons harvested in Western Sahara to France. On these grounds, the Conseil d'État dismissed the Confédération Paysanne's appeal.