Dn a statement by its High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell and the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Union expressed its “extreme concern” at the decision taken by the Algeria to suspend the treaty of friendship and good neighborliness signed with Spain in 2002.
For the two senior European officials, the Algerian unilateral act constitutes ”a violation of the EU-Algeria association agreement”, noting that the European Union will ”oppose any type of coercive measures applied to against an EU Member State.
This new act of Algerian blackmail was vigorously denounced at the level of the European Parliament.
MEPs belonging to different political groups in the European Parliament condemned this unilateral measure, which, according to them, comes in response to Madrid’s new sovereign position on the Moroccan Sahara.
The Spanish government has also responded firmly to these actions by rejecting any interference in the country’s foreign policy, in particular its sovereign positions.
Madrid’s response will be “adequate, calm, constructive, but also firm in defending Spain’s interests”, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in a statement to the press on Thursday.
For MEP Andrey Kovachev, spokesperson for enlargement and the southern neighborhood of the European People’s Party, “Algeria questions its reliability”, noting that “any attitude of blackmail should not be accepted”. ‘.
French MEP Dominique Bilde underlined, for her part, that ”Algeria is putting pressure on Spain after having used the migratory weapon”, regarding the Moroccan Sahara.
She pointed out that ”there would be so much to say about Algerian support for the Polisario front and the management of EU aid to the refugees under its control”.
Czech MEP Tomas Zdechovsky considered that ”Algeria’s current steps towards Spain and the European Union are totally useless”.
“Let’s try to bridge the trenches, not deepen them,” he tweeted.
Same story with Euro-parliamentarian Ilhan Kyuchyuk who denounces “unacceptable Algerian blackmail”.
“A two-decade-old friendship treaty with Spain has been broken by Algeria. Severing relations with a strategic partner like Spain is a signal also addressed to the whole of the EU”, he denounced in a tweet, noting that “such an attitude of blackmail should not be accepted “.
MEP Petar Vitanov for his part expressed his concern following this umpteenth act of Algerian blackmail against Europe.
“I am deeply concerned by Algeria’s decision to suspend the treaty of friendship and good neighborliness signed with Spain in 2002,” he said in a similar statement.
Since the formalization by Spain of its historic support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the Sahara, Algeria has multiplied the acts of reprisals, ranging from the recall of its ambassador to Madrid, to the closure of the GME gas pipeline and today the instruction given to Algerian financial institutions to stop transactions with Spain and the suspension of the treaty of friendship and good neighborliness which binds the two countries.