Elected to the European Parliament in July 2024 on The Republicans’ list led by François-Xavier Bellamy, Céline Imart sits with the European People’s Party (EPP), the Parliament’s largest political group.
At her initiative, eleven Members of the European Parliament submitted written questions to the European Commission and High Representative Kaja Kallas on two issues: whether the Polisario Front should be assessed against the EU’s criteria for inclusion on its list of terrorist organizations, and whether humanitarian aid provided to the Tindouf camps should be subject to stricter traceability requirements to prevent diversion.
The initiative reframes the debate. Rather than being viewed solely as a party to the Sahara conflict, the Polisario is presented as an armed movement whose methods should be examined under the European Union’s counterterrorism framework. By simultaneously placing the management of public funds at the center of the discussion, Céline Imart seeks to rally lawmakers who may be reluctant to take a position on the underlying dispute.
Led by an EPP lawmaker and backed by Members of the European Parliament from several political groups and countries, the initiative brings the issues of the Polisario’s security-related responsibility and the transparency of aid to the Tindouf camps into the European institutional arena. It could pave the way for a more demanding debate for the separatist movement and its supporters.
Le360: Do you believe that bringing together two issues that have traditionally been treated separately—security and oversight of European funding—will make your case more compelling and much harder for the European Commission to avoid?
Céline Imart: Security and oversight of funding are two dimensions that, in my view, had to be addressed together because they are two sides of the same issue.
On the one hand, the Polisario Front is—and openly describes itself as—an armed separatist group whose methods resemble those of terrorist organizations. On the other hand, that same organization administers the Tindouf camps, which receive €9 million a year in funding from the European Union, even though no census establishing the actual number of refugees has ever been carried out, whether by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or by any independent body.
Europe is not a bottomless pit. European funding must rest on simple principles: respect for European values and a commitment to transparency. Today, neither of those conditions is being met.
«That is precisely what my fight is about: not a single euro should go to those who kill and terrorize»
— Céline Imart, Member of the European Parliament
I have therefore asked the European Commission to make humanitarian aid conditional on an independent census of the beneficiaries living in the Tindouf camps, so that this assistance does not become an indirect channel for financing the Polisario Front. And, in light of this armed group’s modus operandi, I have also asked the Commission to assess whether it meets the European Union’s criteria for defining terrorism and to draw the appropriate conclusions within the scope of its powers.
By linking these two issues—security and financial oversight—I believe I have made the matter far more difficult for the Commission to sidestep. One can no longer separate the nature of this organization from the question of its funding. It is one and the same requirement: to know who is truly benefiting from European money, and what that money is actually financing.
On what provisions of European Union law do you base each of the two pillars of your initiative?
My initiative rests on a concrete legal foundation: an amendment that I introduced and secured in the European Parliament as part of the European Union’s 2026 budget, prohibiting any funding for individuals or entities linked to terrorism or promoting it. I intend to ensure that the Parliament’s position is now translated into concrete action.
The first pillar—oversight of funding—is therefore based on a specific budgetary provision that has already been adopted. The second, concerning the possible inclusion of the Polisario on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations, falls under a different legal framework: Common Position 2001/931/CFSP, which sets out the criteria allowing the European Union to designate an organization as terrorist on the basis of factual and verifiable elements, including the nature of its acts, its modus operandi and its claims.
In light of the methods used by the Polisario, as documented, I believe we are operating within the scope of those criteria. But let me be perfectly clear: it is not for me to make that determination. It is for the Commission and the Council to do so, on the basis of the evidence I have asked them to examine. They will have to show courage and clear judgment—qualities that are not always in abundant supply in Brussels.
These two pillars ultimately converge on one point. Once an organization falls, even partially, within those criteria, its financing through European funds—even indirectly through the camps it administers—can no longer be regarded as acceptable. That is precisely what my fight is about: not a single euro should go to those who kill and terrorize.
What safeguards are you calling for to prevent the diversion of aid without penalizing the populations that depend on it?
It’s quite simple. The census determining the amount of aid should be conducted independently by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), rather than relying on figures provided by the authorities administering the camps themselves.
«The Polisario has two faces. On one side, an armed separatist group acting as Algeria’s proxy on the ground. On the other, lobbyists in suits roaming the corridors of the European Parliament to challenge Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara »
— Céline Imart, Member of the European Parliament
An independent census is not a punitive measure against refugee populations. Quite the opposite. It guarantees that the aid provided genuinely reflects the needs of the people who are actually there, rather than being based on inflated figures that benefit those controlling the camps. Today, without independent verification, no one can say with certainty whether European aid truly reaches the refugees or whether part of it is diverted along the way. The populations themselves are the first victims of that lack of transparency.
I am therefore not calling for humanitarian aid to be withdrawn. I am calling for it to be genuine. Aid that is properly targeted, verified and traceable protects vulnerable populations far better than aid distributed blindly, while preventing refugees from being used as a statistical pretext.
Do you believe the Polisario’s armed actions now constitute a threat extending beyond the Sahara conflict itself, particularly given the risks of destabilization across the Sahel and possible links with other regional actors?
The Polisario has two faces. On one side, an armed separatist group acting as Algeria’s proxy on the ground. On the other, lobbyists in suits roaming the corridors of the European Parliament to challenge Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara.
That combination—armed activists on one side, representatives in neckties on the other—deserves very close attention because it enables them to promote a misleading narrative and give their actions an almost romantic aura. One should always be wary of the Che Guevara effect: dressing up as a revolutionary cause what, on the ground, relies on methods that are far more troubling.
Because the reality extends well beyond the Sahara dispute itself. Today, the Sahel-Sahara belt is one of the world’s most porous regions when it comes to the circulation of weapons, trafficking networks and jihadist movements. An organization that controls a territory as vast as the Tindouf camps, without transparency or genuine international oversight, is by its very nature an additional risk factor in a region already destabilized by the presence of groups such as the Islamic State.
I am not claiming here to establish specific operational links. That is the work of specialized services, not of a Member of the European Parliament. But I do believe it is my duty to warn about this risk of spillover and to call on the European Union to stop treating this issue as nothing more than a frozen territorial dispute, when in reality it lies at the heart of a region where the security of North Africa and the entire Sahel is at stake.
The United States Congress launched proceedings in June 2025 through the Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act to place the Polisario on the list of terrorist organizations, citing its links to Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force. How can your initiative complement—or serve as the European extension of—that effort?
The American initiative has the merit of reminding the European Union that it cannot afford to remain on the sidelines of this issue. U.S. intelligence services are not known for being careless. When they document links between the Polisario, Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force, those findings deserve to be taken seriously, not brushed aside in the name of a comfortable diplomatic status quo.
My initiative is not intended to replicate the American approach. Rather, it represents its natural extension in Europe, using our own institutional mechanisms. While the U.S. Congress is asking the executive branch to make an official determination on a possible terrorist designation, I am asking the European Commission and the Council to carry out the same assessment under our own legal framework, particularly Common Position 2001/931/CFSP.
It would, moreover, be paradoxical if the European Union—which prides itself on its commitment to human rights and combating the financing of terrorism—were to prove more hesitant on this issue than the U.S. Congress itself. My initiative is built on a European parliamentary dynamic, supported by lawmakers from different political groups and nationalities, precisely to ensure that this issue does not remain confined to an American debate when it directly concerns the security of our immediate neighborhood, North Africa and the Sahel.
Europe and the United States share the same compass when it comes to fighting the financing of terrorism. The difference is that Europe must be willing to look at where the needle is pointing. It would be incomprehensible if, on an issue as extensively documented as this one, one side acted while the other chose to look away.
Have you received political backing suggesting that your initiative could ultimately lead to a formal procedure before the Council of the European Union?
First of all, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. Beyond the very strong ties of friendship between France and the Kingdom of Morocco, this is not a Franco-French issue. The written question I submitted to the European Union’s High Representative, Kaja Kallas, was co-signed by ten Members of the European Parliament—from France, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Finland—representing several political groups.
That is precisely the foundation on which I am building: a European, cross-party and transnational mobilization demanding accountability for the use of European taxpayers’ money. In my view, this broad base of support is the necessary condition for the Council to eventually take up the matter itself. No European institution moves solely on the initiative of one isolated Member of Parliament. It requires collective momentum, and that is exactly what I am working to build.
Following this written question, what concrete steps do you intend to take next? Parliamentary hearings, an inquiry into the funding, a fact-finding mission to the region, or perhaps a new resolution on the Polisario and the Tindouf camps?
A written question is not, in itself, a Council procedure, and I do not want to suggest otherwise. But it is an indispensable first step. It compels the Commission to respond officially and substantively, while placing the issue firmly on the European institutional agenda. The fact that the support for this initiative cuts across nationalities and political families is, in my view, the clearest indication that this issue cannot be dismissed as a Franco-Moroccan matter or reduced to the position of a single political group. Over time, that is what can encourage the Council to take the matter seriously. Institutional pressure in Europe is rarely built overnight. It is built through the accumulation of texts, support and advocates across several European capitals.
In the coming weeks, I will continue expanding this coalition of support among other national delegations because the Polisario Front is doing everything it can here in Brussels to obstruct the updating of the agreement between the European Union and Morocco. What those in military fatigues do on the ground—destroy—those in suits seek to do here as well, without violence but with the same objective: to destroy rather than to build. Well-tailored lobbying should never exempt anyone from a rigorous examination of the facts, because it does not whitewash either the methods or the project.
