Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, will receive today in Madrid her Algerian counterpart, Sabri Boukadoum, whose country has several pending issues with Spain, such as the limits of territorial waters near the Balearic Islands or the celebration of the High Level Meeting.
According to Foreign Ministry sources, the minister will hold a meeting and lunch with Boukadoum – for whom this is his first official visit to Spain since he took office in April 2019 – at the Viana Palace, after which the two will hold a joint press conference at around four o’clock in the afternoon. Subsequently, the Algerian minister will be received in audience by King Philip VI, accompanied by the Secretary of State for Global Spain, Manuel Muñiz.
During the bilateral meeting, the two ministers will address issues such as migration cooperation, the fight against terrorism, energy cooperation, the Mediterranean area or major regional issues such as Libya, Mali or Sahel. Although it has not been included among the planned topics, the same sources do not rule out that the situation of Western Sahara will be discussed, a conflict in which Algeria has always been very involved in favor of the independence of the former Spanish colony and in open rivalry with Morocco.
The bilateral dialogue between Spain and Algeria remains quite active even in the context of the pandemic, as was reflected in the telematic conversation held last April 4 between the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Latin America and the Caribbean, Cristina Gallach, and the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs of Algeria, Kaid Chakib.
The last meeting between Gonzalez Laya and Boukadoum took place in early March 2020, just before the outbreak of the pandemic, when the minister went to Algiers and was also received by the Algerian president, Abdelmejid Tebboune. On that occasion, the most controversial issue on the minister’s agenda was related to Algeria’s decision to unilaterally extend its territorial waters, within the framework of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), to include the waters surrounding the Spanish island of Cabrera, a measure that was finally withdrawn following protests from the Spanish government.
On February 25, Arancha Gonzalez Laya assured the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that the Government will be “firm in the defense of the principles of the United Nations” when negotiating with Algeria or Morocco on the delimitation of territorial waters. According to the UN, when two countries claim maritime sovereignty over the same area “there can be no unilateralism and there must be negotiation,” he added. “This is the agreement that Spain has with Algeria and Morocco,” he concluded. Despite this, the Popular Party of the Balearic Islands recently presented a non-legislative proposal before the regional Parliament (which was unanimously approved) to urge the central government to reject “with total firmness” the unilateral decision of Algeria to extend its sovereignty “over the territorial waters of the National Maritime-Terrestrial Park of Cabrera”, which “violates Spanish sovereignty”.
After Gonzalez Laya’s visit, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, traveled to Algeria in August 2020 to discuss with President Tebboune, with his counterpart Kamel Beldjoud and with Sabri Boukadoum himself the need to stop the arrival of irregular migrants to Spain from this North African country.
Two months later, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, made an official visit to Algeria whose main themes were energy issues – in particular, Spain’s attempts to achieve a reduction in Algerian gas prices -, migration, security and the fight against terrorism, and in which the head of the Executive was received by President Tebboune and the Prime Minister, Abdelaziz Djerad. During the President’s trip, the Spanish company Naturgy and the Algerian state-owned company Sonatrach reached an agreement to revise the commercial conditions of the gas supply contracts. Algeria supplies approximately 60% of the gas consumed by Spain, both domestic and industrial.
That trip was initially scheduled for April 2020 with the intention of preparing the High Level Bilateral Meeting for the second half of the same year, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented it. For that reason, Sanchez announced in Algiers “the mutual desire” of the two governments to hold in 2021, “when the pandemic is over, a High Level Meeting that, on this occasion, it would be up to Spain to host”. The last HLM was held in 2018 in Algeria.
