Avrupa Birliği’nin Cezayir ile Ekonomik ve Siyasi İş Birliği Ne Kadar Derindir? Avrupa Antlaşmalarının Etkisi

Abstract

This paper examines the background of the economic and political ties between Algeria and the European Union (EU) and the tools that the EU uses. The EU-Algeria economic and political history is quite important to analyse as it is founded on important historical and colonial aspects with France, which is one of the founder countries of the EU. Within this context, the relations of Algeria with the EU have not been easy and have even been turbulent from time to time. EU’s cooperation with Algeria are five folded: The ‘Association Agreement’, the ‘Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’, ‘EU Neighbourhood Policy’, ‘Union for the Mediterranean’ and the ‘EU-Algeria Free Trade Agreement’. This study explores the tools used by the EU to forge a deeper and wider cooperation with Algeria and assesses the bilateral trade and investment status and the current political and economic problems. Our paper explores current and new cooperation opportunities, analyses trade and investment statistics, uses literature review with primary and secondary researches. EU reports and international documents are evaluated from a commercial and political perspective. Politically, we can say that the EU is longing for more cooperation from Algeria, especially on migration and security issues. Economically, we can say that the FTA is currently benefitting more the EU than Algeria’ because Algerian foreign trade balance is in deficit, the country imports more than it exports. Regarding foreign direct investments, we find economic engagement of not only European but also American investments in Algeria, especially regarding oil and gas exploring and production activities. We finally conclude our study with the recommendation of shifting towards a wider variety of economic activities for Algeria, so that it can obtain a more sustainable and balanced economic revenues