Amidst the war in the Middle East and its consequent impact on the global gas and oil market, many countries have entered into a long-distance race to find who can guarantee them the supply of these fossil fuels, or ensure that the link with their main suppliers is robust. This is the case of Spain, which has just announced the "reinforcement" of the energy partnership with Algeria, on which the supply of natural gas to the State depends because it is its main source. For example, between January and December 2025, 34.5% of the natural gas that arrived in Spain (128,504 GWh) came from the African country, while this year Algerian gas already accounts for 29.2% of this fossil fuel (19,243 GWh). In fact, this reinforcement will translate into nothing more and nothing less than an "expansion" of the gas volumes arriving in the State from Algeria. The same happened in 2022, when the war in Ukraine and the consequent decisions of the West regarding its ties with Moscow, including starting to detach from Russian gas in the long term, increased the capacity of the pipeline connecting Spain with the Algerian country: from 8,000 million cubic meters to 10,000 million.

A 69-year-old man disappeared on January 15th when he set sail from the port of Gandia, in the Safor region, on his sailboat. His route was supposed to take him to Guardamar del Segura, in the Vega Baja region, but nothing was heard from him for two weeks. Finally, he was rescued more than 100 nautical miles away: he was found safe and sound in Algerian waters. On Wednesday, the Directorate General of the Merchant Marine and the Civil Guard reported that a Frontex aircraft—the European Union's border management agency—located the sailboat adrift in Algerian territorial waters and that a merchant ship, the Thor Confidence, boarded the vessel. The boat is expected to arrive at the port of Algeciras on Thursday, and from there the man will be transferred to Alicante. The sailboat, named Admirante, is nine meters long.. His disappearance was reported by the partner of the 69-year-old man, who has little sailing experience and whose engine battery died. The sailboat also lacked a radio.

Pedro Sánchez embarked on a tour of West Africa in August 2024 with a stated objective: to combat irregular immigration. He held bilateral meetings with the presidents of Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania, after having strengthened ties with Morocco. At that time, migratory pressure on the Canary Islands had increased substantially, and the Spanish government took action to address the situation. A year and a half later, the figures have changed. While there was a peak in arrivals via the Canary Islands in 2023 and 2024, the numbers began to decline from 2025 onward. However, the decrease in arrivals via the Canary Islands coincided with an increase in arrivals via the Balearic Islands.

In 2023, Tunisia became a headache for European politicians, especially for the far-right Italian government of Giorgia Meloni. That year, some 140,000 people set sail from Tunisian beaches for Europe, and 70% were able to reach it. The figures contrasted with those of its neighbor, Algeria. With a population almost four times larger, just over 2,200 people left in 2023. Two years later, the tables have turned on the so-called central Mediterranean route: Tunisia has almost completely sealed its beaches, while in Algeria the departure of small boats has skyrocketed.

Hichem Aboud (Algeria, 1955) has spent his entire life denouncing the Algerian regime through his books and articles. This keeps him vigilant, and he admits that "he could be shot at any moment." He says he has been kidnapped four times, and The last one was in Barcelona in October The past. Hooded men put him in a car and drove him to Andalusia. Just as they were about to put him on a boat on the Guadalquivir River to presumably take him to the African coast, the Civil Guard intervened. ARA reported this Tuesday that the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) and the Civil Guard have arrested five people as the alleged perpetrators of his kidnapping. However, the investigation has not yet reached the mastermind of the operation.

It was a Thursday in October in the upper part of Barcelona. It was just a few minutes before midnight when, suddenly, the neighbors on Raset Street heard loud screams. Some of them looked out the window and saw three hooded men assault a man and force him into a black Range Rover. No one heard anything more about the man until the next day: a thousand kilometers from Sarrià, the Civil Guard suspected some men who, at night, were loading something onto a boat on the Guadalquivir River. They approached and discovered that the commodity He was a man: Hichem Aboud, an Algerian journalist, best known for his opposition work in this country's Diet.

Spanish foreign policy has a problem of scale. Not with its neighbours, which lately also seems to be the case, but of the scale in which the Kingdom of Spain sees itself in relation to the world around it and, therefore, the arrogance with which it makes mistakes.

The European Union (EU) is stepping up pressure on Algeria. This Friday the European community issued a statement warning the North African country that it is ready "to confront any type of coercive measure" it takes against an EU member state. In a statement signed by the EU's high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, and the European Commission's economic vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, they admitted that they are "extremely concerned" about Algeria's move and believe freezing trade operations with Spain "in principle" could violate Algeria's association agreement with the EU.

The relationship between Spain and Algeria is worsening two and a half months after Spain's shift in position on Western Sahara. The North African country has gone a step further this Wednesday in its protest with a double move: on the one hand, it has announced it was suspending of the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation with Spain, an agreement signed on October 8, 2002 by former President José María Aznar, which establishes the legal framework for bilateral relations between the two countries. Shortly thereafter, it ordered all banking operations related to imports and exports to and from Spain to be frozen as of this Thursday, according to a statement from the Professional Association of Banks and Financial Establishments (ABEF) reported by the Efe news agency. Before learning of this latest development, Spain had not considered relations to be broken, had "reaffirmed" the friendship treaty and had guaranteed the continuity of Algerian gas supplies.