The President of Algeria, Abdelmayid Tebún, at a government meeting on February 5 in Algiers Europa Press
After five months of silence, Algerian President Abadelmayid Tebún has ruled on relations with Spain to warn that “they are frozen but not terminated” since the suspension of the Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighborhood between the two countries last June. In an unusual meeting with the Algerian press on Friday night, the president accused the Spanish government of taking “a wrong step” and committing a “hostile act”, alluding to the turn of events taken by President Pedro Sánchez when he joined a year ago in favor of Western Sahara’s autonomy within Morocco, considering it the “most serious, realistic and credible”.
The Algerian President reiterated Sánchez’s intervention before the UN General Assembly last September, in which he qualified that Spain was defending “a mutually acceptable political solution” within the framework of the United Nations. He described his words as “a possible return by Spain to the European consensus on the Saharawi issue”. A few weeks earlier, the President of the Spanish government in Germany said he would “like” to be able to travel to Algiers as a sign of goodwill.
“There is nothing new” in relations with Spain, he said in a statement highlighting Algeria’s diplomatic progress thanks to the stability and strength of its economy, according to the state news agency APS. Given the allusions to the government’s turnaround on the Sahara, Tebún was more explicit when he stated: “Personally, I am deeply upset about the state of relations with Spain, but Algeria is not at the origin of this crisis […]. The Spanish people, with whom relations are very good, have nothing to do with it and we have absolute respect for the King of Spain and he knows it.”
The situation “does not look good,” stressed Tebún, quoted by Efe. Maghreb and European diplomatic sources agree that the freeze on bilateral relations is temporary. Algiers appears to have put them on hold, awaiting the results of parliamentary elections scheduled for the coming months and an eventual reshuffle at the top of the government that will return Spain to its former position in the Sahara: the self-determination plan of by referendum that would open the door to independence designed by the United Nations three decades ago.
In relation to the rest of the organisms [españoles], we continue to work with them,” stressed the North African head of state. Algeria has reduced imports from Spain by a third, which have increased from 2,906 million euros in 2019 to 1,010 million in 2022. However, Algerian exports to Spain rose by almost 85%, rising from 3,851 million three years ago to 7,105 million last year.
Amid the diplomatic crisis with Madrid, Algiers has not cut off the flow of gas and oil, prices of which have skyrocketed because of the war in Ukraine. Despite Spanish demands to Brussels that Algeria adhere to the association treaty it has signed with the EU, the veto on imports of Spanish products is actually maintained as commercial banking transactions between the two countries remain blocked.
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During his meeting with the press, Tebún also highlighted the strengthening of ties with Italy, which has become the main importer of Algerian gas after ousting Spain. “Some European countries do not like this situation, but Algeria is free in its international and economic relations and defends its interests,” he stressed. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveled to Algiers last month to promote the construction of a new gas pipeline between the two countries with the aim of ending Italy’s energy dependence on Russia. Algeria supplies natural gas to Spain via the Medgaz gas pipeline, which is directly connected to the Andalusian coast. After severing diplomatic ties with Morocco in 2021, Algiers stopped sending gas through the Maghreb gas pipeline, the pipeline that connects to the Iberian Peninsula through the Strait of Gibraltar.