The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured yesterday in Santander that it was the Spanish Presidency itself that recommended that Brussels freeze cooperation with Niger in retaliation for the coup, “as it has been done.”
The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced this past weekend that the European Union had decided to suspend “indefinitely and immediately” all its security cooperation with Niger and its budgetary support to the African country. in protest of the coup last week.
Following the high representative’s decision, France, Niger’s main European partner before the coup, announced the suspension “with immediate effect” of “all its development aid actions and budget support for Niger” and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs It also reported, in a brief statement on its website, the suspension “with immediate effect” of “its bilateral development cooperation with Niger” and called “for the return to Niger’s constitutional order and the release of the democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum”.
“We emphatically reject the retention of President Bazoum and demand his immediate release,” Albares told the press yesterday after the inauguration of the course at the Menéndez Pelayo International University (UIMP) Spain in the world: the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU, held in Santander. “Until the democratic channel is restored, Spain will not resume cooperation with this country, something that we have also requested that Europe carry out,” he continued.
Albares reported that he had spoken “on several occasions” with his counterpart in Niger, Hassoumi Massoudou, who has served as interim president since the retention of the head of state by the Presidential Guard and who had told him that the freezing of cooperation for part of Spain is a “welcome decision to put democracy back on track” in Niger. Likewise, the minister assured that he had also spoken on several occasions with his French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, and with Josep Borrell, to whom, on behalf of the current Spanish Presidency of the EU, he had recommended “freezing European cooperation” with Niger , “as it has been done”.
On the other hand, Albares urged the Spaniards who are in Niger and who have not yet contacted the Embassy of Spain in Niamey to do so “immediately” to have them “located” and to “make sure they are well”.
According to Albares, the Spanish government follows what is happening in the African country “with great concern”. “Niger is a success story, a very fragile country, a great partner of Spain and the EU that has advanced democratically with a government committed to the development of its own people,” he declared.
