Sanchez Tries to Export His Internal Crisis Abroad by Accusing Russia

The Spanish government, headed by Pedro Sanchez, resorted to a new ploy by exporting the internal crisis that occurred after its sudden shift in position on the Western Sahara issue, by accusing Russia of pushing Algeria towards worsening its relations with Madrid and though emphasizing that the gas is still flowing, ignoring Sonatrach’s tendency to terminate the gas contracts with “Naturgy”, due to its evasion of reviewing prices.

In the latest “blow” to the Madrid government, the head of Spanish diplomacy, José Manuel Albares, claimed that the recent escalation by Algeria, represented in suspending the friendship and good-neighbourliness agreement between the two countries dating back to 2002, and the Banks Association’s decision to stop bank settlement, came at the instigation from Russia.

In an attempt to calm the growing political and popular anger against the Sanchez government, Albares said, according to the Spanish newspaper, “El Confidential”, which published an article under the title “Is Russia behind Algeria’s “aggression” against Spain as Minister Albares insinuates?, that he had contacted officials of political parties and businessmen who have interests in Algeria, and informed them that he had obtained details from the European Commission indicating the presence of Russian role with what is happening these days between Algeria and Madrid and that is driven by strategic calculations by Moscow aiming at creating a crisis on the southern borders of the European Union, in an attempt to surround Europe with crises, after Eastern Europe became at the mercy of the Russian bear.

The “fairy” story of Sanchez’s government went further, when it spoke of allegations of Russia’s desire to explode Algerian-Spanish relations because of gas, and then aggravate Spanish-Italian relations, after Rome became the exclusive distributor of Algerian gas to Europe, following the visit that led President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Italy last month.

The second axis that the Sanchez government is working on has an internal dimension and aims to calm the Spanish people and businessmen, who are afraid of the repercussions of the collapse of bilateral relations, which will be directly reflected in their pockets through Algeria’s decision to review gas prices in the contracts concluded between the Algerian “Sonatrach” and “Naturgy” in line with current market prices, which would raise the cost of Spain’s imports of Algerian gas by 4%, to reach nearly ten billion dollars a year.

In this regard, Sanchez instructed members of his government to provide impressions that bilateral relations are not damaged in the way portrayed by the media, which was announced by the Third Vice-President of the government of Spain and Minister of Environmental Transformation and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, who denied that the gas supplies in Spain are at risk and that the relationship between the two countries is “important enough, solid and broad.”

In an interview with the newspaper “La Vanguardia”, Ribera tried to convince the Spaniards that the gas contracts concluded between the two countries are not linked to political positions, as long as they are governed by legal contracts. However, she is like her prime minister and the rest of his government staff, they did not dare to open up to the Spanish people about the most dangerous issue, which is related to gas prices, which are expected to burn the pockets of its citizens, in light of Algeria’s determination to raise it to its real level in global markets, and this is guaranteed under the same contracts which Ribera talked about.

The strange thing is that Teresa Ribera, amid her comment on the Algerian-Italian rapprochement and the possibility of the deterioration of the Spanish relations with Algeria after this rapprochement, which came at the expense of Madrid, talked about her country’s assistance to Rome in supplying gas, while Spain is the one that needs gas at preferential prices, which is the concession it lost after the crisis, which makes its export of gas much more expensive than what Rome buys from Algeria in light of the preferential treatment that Italy enjoys.

According to observers, the government of Pedro Sanchez is trying to delude the Spanish people into that the problems that Madrid is experiencing with Algeria are created by Russia, a ploy that did not deceive the elites and the Spanish people, who were quick to blame their country’s prime minister for the deterioration of relations with Algeria, because he decided to change the historical position on Western Sahara issue, in favour of the Moroccan Makhzen regime.

This attempt remains desperate, as evidenced by the continued targeting of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, blaming him for what Madrid lost due to the deterioration of its relations with Algeria.

Ribera said in an interview with the La Razon newspaper that “the foreign relations of any country, are not specific to the prime minister, because it is the image of Spain abroad, and this would entail serious geopolitical repercussions, and then severe economic losses because we are talking about the gas that we import.”