Algeria has renewed its 2002 treaty of friendship and neighborliness with Spain, ending a prolonged diplomatic standoff that failed to secure any change in Madrid’s support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara.
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares announced the reactivation of the treaty this week following talks in Algiers with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, marking a full normalization of ties nearly four years after Algeria suspended the pact in June 2022.
Algiers had frozen relations in protest over Spain’s endorsement of Morocco’s autonomy proposal, accusing Madrid at the time of violating its legal and political responsibilities as the former administering power of Western Sahara.
Despite the suspension, Spain maintained its position throughout the crisis. Madrid repeatedly reaffirmed its backing of the autonomy plan as the most realistic basis for resolving the dispute, a stance that Algeria sought unsuccessfully to reverse through diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions.
The renewal of the treaty comes after Algeria gradually rolled back retaliatory measures, including lifting trade restrictions imposed on Spanish companies and proposing the return of its ambassador to Madrid in late 2023, effectively ending a 17‑month diplomatic rupture.
Speaking after his meeting with Tebboune, Albares said Spanish‑Algerian relations had entered “a new phase,” highlighting commitments to strengthen energy cooperation. Algeria has been Spain’s leading supplier of hydrocarbons over the past three years.
Notably, the Sahara issue was absent from Albares’s public remarks in Algiers, underscoring Spain’s refusal to reopen the file despite Algeria’s earlier demands.
The restoration of the friendship pact confirms that Algeria’s hard‑line posture toward Spain yielded no diplomatic gains on the Sahara issue, mirroring similar limits in its efforts with other European partners, including France.
While Algiers continues to oppose Morocco’s autonomy plan, it has been unable to extract public support for Polisario from key Western capitals, which have increasingly aligned with the autonomy framework or declined to revisit their positions.
