“Imports from Spain have been de facto almost completely suspended, which significantly damages the overall relationship between Algeria and the European Union,” European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell told Spanish media.
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission (EC) stressed that “the current impasse is in nobody’s interest,” he said, assuring the EC is “ready to act” against Algeria’s violation of the association agreement with Brussels.
“Trade policy is an exclusive competence of the EU” and therefore Brussels “is ready to take action against any measure applied against a member state,” said Miriam Garcia Ferrer, spokeswoman for the European Commission for Trade, in a statement to the Spanish news agency Europa Press.
Since last June, the European Commission has “regularly expressed its concern about the trade implications” of Algiers’ decision, “especially the blocked shipments from Spain,” Garcia Ferrer said. Operations and trade between Spain and Algeria have been blocked ever since.
These blockades came as a result of Algeria’s suspension, on June 8, of the Treaty of Friendship with Spain, in protest against the Spanish position in support of the autonomy plan in the Moroccan Sahara. Spain calls this suspension for such reason an interference in its internal and sovereign affairs.
