The Maghreb country adopted new reprisals after Sánchez’s speech in Congress and his “unjustifiable” turnaround on Western Sahara.
The Professional Association of Banks and Financial Institutions (Abef) announced late on Wednesday night the freezing of direct debits for foreign trade operations of products to and from Spain as of Thursday 9 June, reports ‘Tout sur l’algerie’.
The circular does not establish any kind of exception for transactions, and therefore opens up the scope of the freeze to all sectors, including the energy sector. This association is responsible for passing on the notifications to the banks and acts as an intermediary, receiving orders from the Algerian Ministry of Finance.
Algeria has announced the suspension of the Treaty of Friendship with Spain hours after the debate held in the Congress of Deputies in which the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, was to speak about the consequences that his turnaround on the Sahara has had on his relations with Algiers. During his speech, Sánchez omitted any reference to Algeria, which in the afternoon took another step towards breaking off relations with Spain.
Algeria’s president, Abdelmayid Tebune, explained that the “immediate” suspension of the friendship treaty signed with Spain almost two decades ago is in response to its “unjustifiable” support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara.
The Algerian authorities reproach the Spanish authorities for the campaign undertaken to try to argue for a political turnaround which, according to them, is a “violation of the legal, moral and political obligations” of what is still the “administering power” of Western Sahara.
In this regard, Algiers criticises the support of the government of Pedro Sánchez for an “illegal and illegitimate formula” such as the autonomy proposed by Rabat, which proposes a colonial policy of “fait accompli” through “fallacious arguments”, according to the statement published by the official news agency APS.
The Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation, signed in 2002, “until now governed the development of relations between the two countries”, as the Algerian presidency recalled, which in this way takes a further step in criticisms that already led it in March to recall the ambassador in Madrid for consultations.
