The PP considers “very bad news” for the country the suspension of the Treaty of Friendship with Spain by Algeria. Its institutional deputy secretary and vice president of the European PP, Esteban González Pons, calls on the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to clarify whether “the inexplicable diplomatic swerve” of the Executive regarding the Maghreb has to do “with the private information stolen from his official mobile” .
According to Pons, this robbery, reported last month, is having “humiliating consequences” for Spain and is the origin of Sánchez’s “erratic performance” in Spanish foreign policy in the area.
The Government of Algeria communicated on Wednesday afternoon the “immediate” suspension of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborhood and Cooperation that it signed on October 8, 2002 with Spain. This announcement came after Pedro Sánchez’s appearance before the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies, where he reported on the new position on Western Sahara to recover relations with Morocco.
That same day, the PP made a request in the Lower House for the urgent appearance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, to give explanations in parliament about the suspension by Algeria of said treaty.
Popular sources affirmed that this suspension “is due to the absence of a true foreign policy with a sense of State, as well as to the unilateral turns and lurches of the Prime Minister.” “Where there is a problem, instead of solving it, it generates three,” they said.
Meanwhile, on the government side, the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, warned this Thursday that if the diplomatic tensions with Algeria end up affecting the gas supply from that country, Spain will resort to courts and international arbitration mechanisms, reports Servimedia.
“I am confident that this will continue to function as it is,” Ribera said in an interview on Onda Cero, where he explained that the gas supply from that country is included in commercial contracts between the Algerian company Sonatrach and Spanish companies.
He assured that “we have great respect for the Algerian government”, adding that “we don’t like” that it has decided to break the treaty of good friendship. For this reason, he has indicated that “we are open to recovering this relationship as soon as possible, but we also want to have a good relationship with Morocco”.
In fact, he has argued that the poor relationship between Morocco and Algeria “is their problem that should not affect the good relationship between Spain and each of them.”
In a similar vein, the head of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has reported that the Government is analyzing the consequences of Algeria’s decision to freeze foreign trade with Spain and will give a “serene, constructive, but firm” response in favor of Spanish interests.
The head of Spanish diplomacy already regretted this Wednesday the Algerian decision to suspend the treaty between the two countries and this Thursday he reiterated Spain’s desire to continue maintaining good relations with that country.
For his part, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, has said that the friendship treaty has not been broken, but has been suspended, just as other decisions made by the Algerian country have not been final.
“You have to differentiate between breaking the treaty, denouncing it as it is technically said and suspending it. Just like other decisions they made at the time, let’s say they are not final decisions,” he transferred in an interview on Antena 3.
Bolaños has assured that they will continue working with all the diplomatic means at their disposal to restore the friendship treaty “as soon as possible.” “We want to have a normalized, loyal relationship and that is where we are”, he added, while pointing out that the geostrategic situation of Spain with respect to Morocco and Algeria is different from that of other countries of the European Union.
In relation to gas supply, the minister stressed that Algeria has always been a reliable partner, as the Algerian authorities have stated, saying that “(gas) is not at risk in any case”.
He has also pointed out that they have no “indication” that the gas supply is going to be questioned and, immediately afterwards, he has assured that they have their hand outstretched to rebuild the relationship.
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