In the name of European legislation, France has banned the entry of the spread into its territory El Mordjeneone of the rare Algerian industrial products to have been able to establish itself on the old continent. A ban which raises questions about the attitude of the EU.
Notwithstanding the legal validity of the measure, it reveals, at least for Algerian public opinion, the double face of Europe in its relationship with Algeria and the countries of the South in general. Is the win-win partnership that is being promised therefore an empty slogan?
While acknowledging that the product did not pose any harm to consumers’ health and that it complied with all standards, the French Ministry of Agriculture highlighted a European Union regulation setting out the countries authorised to export milk or food products containing milk in their composition to EU territory.
Dieticians, who took the trouble to compare Algerian El Mordjene and Italian Nutella in the laboratory, agreed that the two products are not different in any way.
El Mordjene Ban Exposes Association Agreement Deception
The French measure raises legitimate questions because for several weeks, Algerian pasta was able to pass through the ports without this famous European regulation being invoked.
For many in Algeria, it is a way of protecting a European brand, Nutella in this case, against competition from the other side of the Mediterranean.
The president of the Algerian Consumer Protection Association (Apoce) is one of those who do not believe in the argument of the European regulation. “The product was circulating normally and when it became a danger for their beloved product, they did all the analyses and released all the standards,” Mustapha Zebdi denounced.
Even if Europe had only applied its regulations, the fact remains that this affair reveals the deception of the association agreements: while opening up other markets by dismantling tariffs, the EU closes its own by means of regulatory barriers.
Barriers so tight that even a product whose quality and conformity are indisputably recognised, and which consumers are snapping up on the shelves, has not managed to get past.
Europe’s partnership with the countries of the South: what the El Mordjene episode reveals
Those in Algeria who have been denouncing for two decades the unfair nature of the association agreement negotiated in haste with the EU at the beginning of the 2000s, have once again found themselves comforted.
This Europe, which does not want a single well-made Algerian product, does not hesitate when, on the other side, the market is not completely open to its goods.
The European Commission did so just three months ago, when it announced in mid-June the opening of proceedings against Algeria for the measures it had taken to rationalize its imports and preserve its foreign exchange reserves.
Algeria, like its Maghreb neighbours, could legitimately expect a boost from Europe for their development through direct investment and technology transfer. But real investment is still awaited more than two decades after the conclusion of association agreements that were promising on paper.
A blow to the image of the European Union
The paste manufactured in Algeria by the Cebon brand would certainly not have changed the face of the Algerian economy, even if it increased its exports tenfold.
However, its ban in France, and therefore in Europe, further tarnishes the unflattering image of the European Union in Algeria.
It is so much talked about because it reveals the conception made on the other side of the Mediterranean of the partnership with the countries of the southern shore: they are expected to open their markets without reciprocity and to act as policemen in the fight against migratory flows and the terrorist threat, also without compensation in terms of development, investment and technology transfer.
The approach is nevertheless perilous and the boomerang effect is already there: the migratory flows which prevent Europe from sleeping are first and foremost the fruit of this underdevelopment from which it refuses to help the countries of the South to emerge.
