Kiosk360. The Spanish government has confirmed that its decision on the Sahara issue is a state decision. Algeria did not take it well. She attempted a standoff with this country before being rebuffed by the EU. This article is a press review from the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia.
In its escalation against Spain, Algeria only lasted two days. It only took 48 hours for Spain, supported by the European Union, to overcome, once and for all, the legendary pride of its neighbor to the East.
In its edition of Monday June 13, the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia looks back on this ephemeral standoff lost in advance by Algeria. Everything happened, in fact, very quickly. On Wednesday, the Algerian presidency announced the suspension of the treaty of friendship and good neighborliness which binds this country to Spain. Treaty which was also concluded in 2002, when, let us remember, Morocco and its northern neighbor were in the midst of a crisis.
In the wake of the Algerian presidency’s announcement, an association of banking operators is calling on the banks to immediately freeze bank domiciliation operations, a procedure necessary for any commercial transaction between private Spanish and Algerian operators. Spain says it regrets this act, while affirming that its government has not taken any decision that affects Algeria and has not said a single word to provoke the escalation. Immediately afterwards, the European institutions come into play and line up behind Spain. The European Union thus warned, on Friday, Algeria against the consequences of the trade restrictions it imposed on Spain, threatening Algiers with retaliatory measures.
European Commission officials write Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, also announced that they have undertaken to assess the implications of the Algerian actions, in particular the instruction given to financial institutions to stop transactions between the two countries. Which, for the EU, corresponds to a violation of the EU-Algeria Association Agreement, particularly in the area of trade and investment.
In the same vein, European officials have assured that the EU is ready to oppose any type of coercive measures applied against a Member State. This while recalling that commercial policy is an exclusive competence of the Union. According to the daily, the European Union made a point of clearly expressing its fed up with Algeria’s continual blackmail.
Indeed, after gas blackmail and Algeria’s action by cutting off the flow of the Maghreb Europe (GME) gas pipeline, in protest against the new Spanish position supporting the autonomy of the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty, it is the turn of a trade agreement between the two countries to suffer the same fate. The EU wants to put an end to all this. In addition to the officials of the Commission, this new act of Algerian blackmail was also vigorously denounced at the level of the European Parliament.
Faced with this threatening tone from the EU, continues the daily, Algeria has been forced to temporize. Its representative with the 27, in Brussels, hastened to try to save the furniture. While maintaining that his country could not call into question its association agreement with the EU, he claimed that the government of his country had never taken measures aimed at stopping current transactions with a European partner, the Spain in this case.
And in order not to attract even more the wrath of the EU, Algeria has assured that it will continue to honor all its commitments with regard in particular to gas deliveries to Spain. End of the episode. According to the daily, this is just the umpteenth episode in which Algeria wanted to play tough and ended up kicking the ass.
It must be said, emphasize Al Ahdath Al Maghribia that since the El Guerguerate affair, the neighbor to the East continues to confirm that it is a stakeholder, and even the main instigator, of the conflict around the Sahara. His alleged support for the principle of the right to self-determination is ultimately only a chimera that his many decisions in recent years have finally made to vanish.
We already knew it for years, the question of the Sahara has always constituted an essential file to the point of becoming the real backbone of Algerian diplomacy. Today, we know that the military power in Algeria is ready for anything, including to sink the whole country by playing the vital interests of its people for the Polisario.