Algeria has appointed a new ambassador to France and it is in Madrid rather than Paris that the news arouses more interest.
The reason for this is that the new head of the most important Algerian diplomatic mission abroad is none other than Said Moussi, the Algerian ambassador to Spain recalled for consultation on March 19.
It was the first act of estrangement between the two countries. Algiers had taken this measure the day after the announcement by the Spanish government of its historic reversal vis-à-vis the Western Sahara issue.
Other measures have since followed, including the suspension, on Wednesday, June 8, of the treaty of friendship, good neighborliness, and cooperation signed with Spain in 2002.
The Spanish authorities are also crying out for the blockage of trade and have serious fears about the country’s supply of gas, of which just over 20% comes from Algeria.
At the end of April, Amar Belani, Special Envoy in charge of Western Sahara and the Maghreb countries, had warned that the crisis with Spain was not an autumn cloud.
Those who speak of a “passing anger of Algeria, are not in phase with reality”, had retorted the Algerian diplomat to the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, who had called for the return of the ambassador of Algeria at his post.
Belani ‘s words find their full meaning with the developments of recent weeks and particularly this appointment of Said Moussi in Paris.
Even recalled 4 months ago, Moussi was still ambassador to Spain. His assignment to Paris means that Algiers has chosen to leave its embassy in Madrid vacant, probably for a long time yet.
At least that is how Spanish analysts interpret President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s decision.
As long as Sanchez and Albares remain in charge…
Some are even convinced that the post will remain vacant and relations between the two countries blurred as long as Pedro Sanchez and his Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares remain in charge of Spanish foreign policy.
Quoting Algerian diplomatic sources, the newspaper El Confidencial reported on Wednesday, July 13 that the Algerian president “is not prepared to reconcile with Spain while Sánchez is at the head of the government and José Manuel Albares is the head of the Spanish diplomacy.
It must be said that the two men did nothing to calm the anger of Algiers, striving for four months to defend their new orientation rather than to review it.
It was also on the very day of a speech in which Pedro Sanchez tried to justify his reversal again that Algiers announced the suspension of the friendship treaty.
In Algiers as in Madrid, there are good reasons to think that the two countries will be able to return to normal relations in the event of a change of government in Spain.
Among these reasons, the almost unanimous disagreement of the political class, except the socialist party (PSOE) in power, with the new orientation of Pedro Sanchez vis-à-vis the Sahrawi question and the Maghreb countries.
At the end of June, the congress of deputies (parliament) adopted a motion calling for the return to the historical neutrality of Spain in the Sahrawi dossier and for normal relations with Algeria.
In Spain, Pedro Sanchez is accused of having taken such a heavy decision unilaterally without consulting the other parliamentary groups, and of having left it to a foreign head of state to announce it.
It is indeed the King of Morocco Mohamed VI who announced in a press release, on March 18, the decision of the Spanish government to support the Moroccan autonomy plan.
The business community is also fuming at Sanchez and his team for jeopardizing relations with an important economic partner, a country that buys Spain 2 to 3 billion dollars worth of goods a year and supplies it with significant quantities of gas at a price lower than the market price.
At the end of June, the former president of the government, José Maria Aznar, who himself signed the friendship treaty that Algiers has decided to suspend, warned that Spain will “pay dearly” for this crisis with the ‘Algeria.
