Spanish Foreign Minister’s First Meeting With Algeria’s New Ambassador

Six months after his appointment as Algerian ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain, Abdelfetah Daghmoum finally met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, in Madrid.
This was the first meeting between the head of Spanish diplomacy and the Algerian ambassador, after a stormy crisis that affected the bilateral relations due to the deviation (according to Algeria) that occurred in the Spanish position by siding with the Moroccan regime at the expense of Western Sahara.
The Algerian ambassador, Abdelfetah Daghmoum, who succeeded the current ambassador to Paris, Said Moussi, arrived in Madrid in the middle of last December and presented his credentials to King Felipe VI last April 8, which did not contribute to organizing a meeting between the diplomats, as reported by the Spanish “Europa Press”.

The meeting between the two officials could have occurred before this date if the visit of the head of Spanish diplomacy to Algeria had taken place on February 12, as Ambassador Daghmoum was supposed to be present in Algeria during this visit. Still, its cancellation at the last minute prevented that.

The meeting came during the audience organized by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the Viana Palace, with African ambassadors on Thursday, May 23, 2024, in Madrid, which was devoted to presenting representatives of African countries with proposals regarding the new strategy that the Spanish government is preparing for cooperation with the African continent, which was attended by about twenty ambassadors out of a total of 54 African country.

The Spanish government is working on formulating a new strategic framework to strengthen its relations with Africa. This framework seeks to defend a sustainable future on a global scale, and to establish a “renewed association based on honest dialogue,” and called on African countries to join this process by submitting their proposals.

According to observers, the participation of the Algerian ambassador in Madrid in the meeting called for by the Spanish Foreign Minister does not mean that relations between the two countries have returned to normal, as the exchange of visits between officials of the two countries has not occurred since the outbreak of the crisis in March 2022, and the visit of José Manuel Albares to Algeria in February 2024, could have led to a reduction in escalation between the two parties, but it ended with cancellation, confirming that the diplomatic crisis still exists today.

What reinforces this proposition is that, despite the passage of nearly four months since the cancellation of Albares’ visit to Algeria, no specific date has been set for another visit, nor has any new initiative that would lead to thinking about rapprochement from one party or another emerged.

The Spanish Foreign Minister is considered one of the most hated figures in Algeria, due to his ill-advised statements and improvised positions, which made him the subject of great criticism by the diplomatic machine in Algeria, which described him as an “amateur diplomat” and a “stoker of strife.”

According to figures issued by the Spanish Ministry of Commerce, the value of exports to Algeria in the first two months of this year amounted to 163 million euros, compared to 17 million recorded between January and February 2023, but it is still very far from the 334 million recorded in the first two months of 2022, despite the tremendous efforts made by Madrid on more than one level to lift the “blockade” imposed on Spanish goods.