Brussels, 12/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - During his visit to Paris at the end of last week, where he was invited to address the French parliament, Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci announced that exploratory talks would be opened very shortly with the EU on Algeria's becoming part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), “a policy which has been reshaped making it more accessible to countries like ours”. “Tackling terrorism, the Arab Spring, the Maghreb and Franco-Algerian relations all featured in the 'hearing'”, the Algerian media have reported. Medelci set out Algeria's reform programme for parliamentarians: this process “will be consolidated in the second half of 2012 through the revision of the constitution”, the minister said.
Of most particular interest was the prospect of a change in the Algerian line on partnership with the EU. The daily Quotidien d'Oran says that “Algeria, which has long held reservations about becoming part of the regional political grouping, now seems more open to this new kind of relations between the EU and the countries of the Southern Mediterranean. Morocco and Tunisia are among the countries which have already joined the ENP, which offers a number of advantages to member countries, including 'enhanced status'”. Addressing the press on 8 December, EU Ambassador to Algeria Laura Baeza said that the current review of ENP arrangements announced in Brussels in March of this year was taking place because of “the need for a response suited to the rapid developments in the countries of the neighbourhood and to their reform needs”. The ENP has a budget of €7 billion and, for member countries, there is the promise of aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). “The new strategy makes it clear that increased EU support for its neighbours will be conditional, for example, on progress achieved in establishing and consolidating democracy and respect for the rule of law”, Baeza stated. She said that discussions were taking place at the level of experts at which a softening of the Algerian position towards the ENP could be discerned. The Algeria-European Union Association Committee will meet next week, Baeza indicated. Media sources report that “negotiations on tariff dismantling are continuing. Technical difficulties have been encountered with regard to the list of industrial goods, but the agricultural list has already been agreed. Easing of procedures related to investment in Algeria is still called for by economic operators”.
Conversely, financial support is definite. According to the media, €172 million has been allocated to the EU-Algeria cooperation programme for the period from 2011 to 2013. In 2014, Brussels, which is very well aware that Algeria has no real need for money, plans to increase this budget which will be aimed more at funding technical projects. In 2011, for example, “€13 million were allocated to a programme to implement a new transport strategy in Algeria”, writes the Quotidien, reporting on the meeting with Baeza. It speaks of a “new dynamic” in Euro-Algerian relations where there would seem to be a common desire to strengthen cooperation in energy especially. (FB/transl.rt)