Brussels, 18/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - European External Relations Commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, will visit Algeria this spring, according to reports in Algeria, where this is a big media event since it will be the first visit by a top European politician to Algeria in recent years, despite the signing of an Association Agreement in Valencia on 22 April 2002 on the fringes of a ministerial conference.
At the same time as Ms Ferrero-Waldner's visit, the Algerian parliament will be considering the text of the Association Agreement with a view to ratifying it. Algeria set the condition that at least fifteen parliaments of EU Member States should ratify the Agreement before it was discussed in the Algerian parliament. Fourteen Member States have ratified the Agreement according to recent information. In parallel, a technical delegation from the European Commission visited Alger at the beginning of the week to start exploratory talks over concerted efforts to prepare an Action Plan for Algeria in the framework of the EU's good neighbours policy.
According to media sources in Algeria, this marks the end of a period of misunderstanding and silence for which Algerian diplomats hold themselves partly responsible. According to Algerian press agency APS, quoting European sources, it is time to clear the accumulated misunderstandings and remedy negligence displayed by the Commission for Algeria. Alongside the constant comparison with the positive changes in relations between the EU and Morocco, Algeria's rival and neighbour, Algerians have the feeling that the Commission doubts the validity of reforms carried out in the country. Alger refuses to sign an intermediate agreement with the EU anticipating some of the trade measures of the Association Agreement. Other sources of 'misunderstanding' cited include the Algerian authorities' delays in the ratification procedure, and the lack of political dialogue. According to the APS agency, while Algerian diplomats plead guilty and recognise their share of the responsibility through failing to give enough visibility to their pledges to cooperate with the EU, they query the potential benefits to Algeria of this cooperation with the EU.
APS notes that there are 'uncertainties' over the advantages of associating with the EU. The offer to incorporate Algeria in the European single market, one of the objectives of the EU's neighbourhood policy, does not seem to convince Algerians given the 'development gap' that makes the benefits largely on paper only. It is suggested that the Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister is planning to make use of the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona process to call for 'catch-up' measures such as greater investment before considering signing the Action Plan. Citing 'experts and specialists' who 'mistrust' the current approach, the press reports suggest the EU's good neighbours policy has a single objective, namely greater opening of the economies on the southern Mediterranean.
The EuroMed policy is criticised, with the Algerian ambassador to Brussels, Halim Benattallah, writing in Algerian newspaper Le Quotidien d'Oran that ten years after it was launched, the Barcelona Process has had mixed progress and is far from having developed all its potential. But he also says that there is no 'viable alternative' to it. The ambassador expresses a degree of suspicion over the bilateral approach now favoured by the Commission, he says, through the good neighbours policy, which the Commission plans to use as a way of getting round or solving problems that multilateral geometry (EuroMed, Ed.) has not been able to overcome. While urging the Commission to be less 'unilateral', he hopes it will focus attention on the Maghreb (North Africa) to make up for the failings of the Barcelona Process distorted by enlargement and the granting of special status to Turkey. The ambassador has no faith either in the sub-regional 'Agadir Agreement' integration process supported by the EU (Alger refuses to join other countries in the southern Mediterranean region involved in the Agadir Agreement, arguing that overall, it is the European partner that dictates the conditions to be met for this 'South-South' integration process). Finally, against the backdrop of post-September 11, the Algerian ambassador queries the objectives of political dialogue which arises, in his opinion, from a European vision seen as a 'containment policy' at the south of Europe, rather than genuine cooperation. In his view, the proof of this lies in the fact that Israel is exonerated from certain commitments concerning weapons of mass destruction, commitments required from the other countries of the region.