Brussels, 16/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - Algeria and the EU held a session of their Association Council in Brussels on 16 May, the first since the association agreement took effect in September 2005. Mohamed Bedjaoui, Algerian Foreign Minister, and Ursula Plassnik, President of the EU Council, jointly chaired the session preceded by a “policy breakfast” which allowed for a friendly and frank exchange of views on various subjects of common interest. The session endorsed the “institutionalisation” of EU/Algeria cooperation, Mr Bedjaoui said, stressing the degree of confidence between the two capitals, enhanced by the visit from President Bouteflika in December 2000 and his prime minister in March 2006. The desire to make up for lost time, which marked Euro-Algerian cooperation, was seen in several aspects (reform, implementation of cooperation, infrastructures, etc.). Algeria highlighted the enormous potential in the energy sector, and for gas in particular, for which a “strategic partnership” has nearly been sealed. The Algerian minister, moreover, affirmed his country's desire to be more actively involved in downstream energy activity, and especially to invest in related sectors. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who admitted that the question had hitherto been “taboo”, felt that an agreement on strategic partnership should, according to the logic of the European Green Paper, lay the base for a “way of working together”.
Algeria pointed out that it grants priority to the question of visas, on which the EU has been requested to make an effort given the concessions made by Algeria on the re-entry issue.
The very top priority for Algiers, however, is to ensure the most effective implementation of all chapters of the agreement before even foreseeing the finalisation of an action plan in the context of EU Neighbourhood Policy (which has not been explicitly discussed), or accession to the Agadir agreement (that the EU encourages as an approach towards establishing “South-South” cooperation). Algiers also counts on European aid and flexibility to facilitate its membership to the WTO. EUROPE will come back to the conclusions of the session in greater detail in a later issue.