The European Court of Justice is next week to discuss EU-Morocco accords allowing Rabat to export goods from Western Sahara that are contested by the pro-independence Polisario Front. It is to hold two sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday but a ruling will take “several months”, a spokesman for the Luxembourg-based court told AFP. For the Polisario, Moroccan exports from the disputed territory amount to “looting of its natural resources”, notably agricultural goods, phosphates and fish, according to the independence movement’s French lawyer Gilles Devers. On the other side of the argument, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, quoted by the kingdom’s MAP news agency, said Rabat would repel “this judicial harassment” and defend “the legitimacy of its partnership” with Europe. On the ground, tensions rose sharply in November when Morocco sent troops into a buffer zone to reopen the only road leading from Morocco to Mauritania and the rest of West Africa. The two sides have since exchanged regular fire along a UN-monitored demarcation line. A 1991 ceasefire deal was meant to lead to a referendum on self-determination for the Britain-sized former Spanish colony that is home to about one million people.