Brussels, 10/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - The EU and Algeria are to hold informal discussions in Algiers on 16 February on the conclusion of a bilateral agreement that will ease Algeria's accession to the WTO (World Trade Organisation), national press agency APS reports, citing an official source “close to the matter”. This meeting will take place alongside talks on deepening the association agreement, which has governed direct relations between the EU and Algeria, since 2005.
APS points out that, in 2009, Algeria was already “critical of its European partner for failing to abide by its commitment to help Algeria join the WTO”. This support was among the commitments formally made: it was “written in black and white that, as a quid pro quo for the association agreement with the EU, Europe would help Algeria” meet the conditions for WTO membership. “Right up until the present moment, we are still receiving questions from the EU, which does not facilitate this accession”, said former minister El-Hashemi Djaâboub. The EU has complained about the dual pricing of energy which distorts competition, and anti-dumping measures were applied at one point on Algerian exports of fertilisers. APS says that “the EU argued that the price of the gas use in that gas-intensive industry was subsidised (…) the dual pricing of gas was among the requests sent by Algeria to the WTO”. Quoting the former minister, the agency concludes that “the question of the dual pricing of gas is no longer an issue after the accession to the WTO of Russia and Saudi Arabia, two countries which made no concessions on that front”. (FB/transl.rt)