Echo Of Exchange Of Visits Between Algeria And Italy Reaches Spain

The Spaniards view with suspicion the frequency of visits between officials in both Algeria and Italy in the last few days, which coincided with an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Algeria and Madrid, as the latter construe in the exchange of these fruitful visits the existence of certain arrangements at the expense of their country.
The last visit of an Italian official to Algeria was paid by the CEO of the Italian energy giant “Eni”, Claudio Descalzi, who was received by the President and General Manager of Sonatrach, Taoufik Hakkar, and they agreed to shore up Algerian gas exports to Italy.
This is the second visit of its kind in less than a month. It also came less than a week after the visit of the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chakib Kaid, to Rome, and from there he talked about reviewing gas prices with Spain.
While the Secretary-General of the Algerian Foreign Ministry was on a visit to Rome on the occasion of the fourth session of the strategic dialogue between Italy and Algeria, the Ministry of Mujahideen, in coordination with the Italian ambassador to Algeria, Giovanni Polizzi, organized a historic forum on the Friends of the Revolution, in which the Italian role in supporting the revolution was highly commended.
It was also documented by the media of this country, while Italian personalities friendly to the liberation revolution were honored, such as Enrico Mattei, founder of the “Eni” company, and the journalist Piero Angela.
If Descalzi’s visit was meant led to strengthening cooperation between Sonatrach and its Italian counterpart, Eni, and intensifying exploration efforts to raise production capacity, the Spanish press reported that the Italian side requested an increase in gas exports by about nine billion cubic meters.
The echo of the exchanged visits between Algeria and Italy has just reached the Spanish media outlets, which seemed to blame their country’s government for abandoning the close relationship with Algeria.
To this effect, the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, said that “Italy is on the right track in its relations with Algeria, enabling it to obtain additional supplies of gas equivalent to the totality of what Algeria exports to Spain through the only remaining pipeline linking Algeria and Spain, “Medgaz” after the halt of the European Maghreb gas pipeline, which was linking Algeria to Spain via Moroccan soil, at the beginning of last November.
According to what the same newspaper wrote, the Italian PM, Mario Draghi, called his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and asked him for an additional supply of Algerian gas by about 9000 million cubic meters, and the same newspaper indicated, that all supplies of Algerian gas towards Italy, have remained at the old price, but on the contrary it was decided to review the prices of gas supplied to Spain.
Algeria currently exports to Italy about 22 billion cubic meters of gas through the Enrico Mattei pipeline, which links Algeria and Italy through Tunisian territory, which means that the amount that will be added after the new order will raise the total volume to more than thirty billion cubic meters of gas per year.
This makes Italy the main and reliable partner for Algeria in the field of energy, while Madrid is rolling to lower levels in terms of gas exports, which remain in the range of only nine billion cubic meters per year, according to the Spanish newspaper.
In a related context, the newspaper “Merca 2” bemoaned the deterioration of Algerian-Spanish relations, which caused Madrid to be thrown into an energy crisis after Algeria’s decision to review gas prices, and wrote: “In Spain, the low dependence on Russian gas compared to our European partners puts us in a better position to confront this energy crisis, but the 180-degree shift in the (Spanish) government’s foreign policy regarding the situation in occupied Western Sahara will allow Algeria to take advantage of this crisis to raise gas prices.”
The newspaper further referred to Sonatrach’s decision to review the prices of gas exported to Spain only, a decision that coincided with the new geopolitical situation, in reference to the dire repercussions of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, on energy prices.