• International The keys to the crisis between Morocco and Algeria and its implications for Spain

  • Analysis Algiers prohibits Spain from reselling its gas to Rabat and imposes conditions to expand the only gas pipeline it maintains

The sixth

Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean

has not finally counted on the presence of

Algeria

and

Morocco

, the two countries that

Spain

aspired to bring together in the meeting not only to bilaterally address the relaunch of relations and the energy crisis with each of them. , but also to try a kind of mediation in the renewed tensions that confront them.

Neither the Moroccan Foreign Minister,

Nasser Bourita

, nor the Algerian,

Ramtane Lamamra

, have attended the meeting of the Forum in

Barcelona

headed by the Spanish Minister José Manuel Albares, the High Representative for EU Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, and the secretary of the UPM,

Nasser Kamel

.

The excuse to justify the absence has been the celebration in

Dakar

of the

China-Africa Summit

, a forum that takes on special relevance due to the growing presence of Chinese investment and companies in the neighboring continent, a relationship that today continues to be more beneficial for the interests of the Asian country than for the African nations, which maintain an annual trade deficit with

China

of more than 20,000 million dollars.

Trying to rebalance this situation is a priority objective of the meeting.

Foreign Affairs never wanted to confirm the attendance of the Algerian and Moroccan ministers to the Mediterranean Forum, understanding that predictably the differences, now especially bitter between the two, would be an obstacle of the first order.

In this way, the possibility that the Forum was the scene of the postponed appointment between Albares and his Moroccan counterpart has been diluted. An appointment that, if it had occurred, could have served to recover the diplomatic relationship between Madrid and Rabat, lame since Morocco, on June 18, called its ambassador in Spain for consultations. The withdrawal of the diplomat occurred after Rabat lifted its border controls with Ceuta and allowed the passage of thousands of Moroccan citizens and, later also, after Spain decided to host the leader of

the Polisario Front

, Brahim Ghali, to be treated by the Covid in a Spanish hospital.

In recent months, the triangular Spain-Morocco-Algeria relationship has been overshadowed by the energy crisis and the closure of the gas pipeline that transports Algerian gas to Spain via Morocco, as well as the accusation of Algiers against Rabat of being behind the bombing in which three Algerian truckers were killed.

"Active" voltages

This accumulation of circumstances made it difficult for the two countries to meet in Barcelona, ​​a meeting in which Albares tries to "reinforce cohesion" between the nations on both shores of the Mediterranean by softening, through dialogue and collaboration, "the conflicts and tensions that they are still active in the region. "

At the opening of the Forum, the Spanish minister emphasized that without everyone's effort and cooperation "the Mediterranean will see its own existence and that of the 790 million people who live on its shores at stake."

"The fragmentation of the region," he insisted, "only benefits those who want to divide us."

On this occasion, the sixth Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean has managed to bring together some twenty foreign ministers from the 42 countries that comprise it (27 from the

European Union

and 15 from Africa).

Its objective in this edition is to relaunch a "fair and inclusive" economic and social recovery that will make it possible to definitively overcome the serious consequences of the pandemic.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Morocco

  • Spain

  • Algeria

  • Coronavirus

  • Ceuta

  • European Union

  • China

  • Africa

  • Josep Borrell

  • Covid 19

Covid-19Vaccination, the firewall that reduces the possibility of contagion by half

EnergyThe importation of Algerian gas by ship will have an extra cost of 200 million after losing the gas pipeline

ConflictThe keys to the crisis between Morocco and Algeria and its implications for Spain

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