|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
||||||||
COMPLUTENSIAN
INSTITUTE OF STUDIES INTERNACIONALES
DOCUMENTS
OF
WORK
DT: 5/1998
ALGERIA:
ECONOMIC
APPROACH To The CRISIS
Iván Martín
Professor of Economy and European Union
of
of Vassar-Wesleyan-Colgate
Program in Spain (the United States)
ALGERIA:
ECONOMIC
APPROACH To The CRISIS
Summary
Algerian civil
conflict has deserved explanations culturales, nuns or policies, cuando not
considera as test tube of the "shock of civilizaciones" or
expression of a supuesta drift fundamentalista of the incompatible Islam with
a modern sociedad. Nevertheless, the análisis of the model of socioeconómico
development implanted by the poscoloniales governments entre 1962 and 1988
contributes an explanatory frame of the crisis without a doubt partial, but
enlightening.
model of argelino
development was based on the rents of exportación of hidrocarburos like only
source of financing of desarrollo and accumulation. The absolute prioridad
granted to a política of intensive industrialization in capital and foreign
tecnología and centrada in the heavy industry was conjugated with the
negligence of agriculture, provocando a massive rural exodus to cities with
serious deficiencies of infraestructuras and houses, as well as almost
complete a estructural nourishing dependency. The result of all it was the
marginalization of sistema economic of segments importantes of the
population, the condemned to the unemployment or the misery of the suburbs.
Paradoxicalally, Algeria became a paradigmático example of dual, extraspilled,
especializada and disarticulated economy. The fast growth of the population
and a very young demographic structure, unidos to this lack of oportunidades
of integración económica, constitutes the sociological sustrato in which
they prospered the islamistas políticas forces, to the being the only ones
that offered a real alternative of social policy. From one perspectiva of
political economy, the Algerian crisis can be entender in key of apropiación
of the rents of the petróleo.
Abstract
The civil Algerian conflict you have been explained in
terms of cultural, religious and political processes, if not considered to
either ace to test marries for the "clash of civilizations" or ace
an evidence of the purported fundamentalist drift of Islam AT odds with modern
society. However, an analysis of the socioeconomic development model
implemented by the post-colonial Governments from 1962 through 1988 delivers
to revealing, albeit partial for logical framework the crisis.
The Algerian development model relied on the income from
hydrocarbons exports for ace the only source of finance development and
capital build-up. The absolute priority attached to to capital and foreign
technology intensive industrialization policy focused on heavy industries
combined with neglect of agriculture to causes massive rural migration to City
suburbs lacking all kinds of infrastructure and even housing facilities, ace
well ace to virtually full food dependency. This resulted in the exclusion from
the economic system of large segments of the population, bound to unemployment
or outright poverty.
INDEX
Summary -
Abstract
Introduction
1. model of poscolonial
development in Algeria: 1962-1988
1.1. Dowry and explotación of hydrocarbons
1.2. Industrial policy
1.3. Agricultural policy
1.4. Population, urbanización and unemployment
1.5. The exterior dependency
commercial Dependency
financial Dependency
1.6. Conclusions
2. importance of
Argelia
2.1. the gas provision
2.2. the phantom of the massive emigration and I infect
3. Evaluation of
reformas economic
3.1. structural Ajuste
3.2. Student model
3.3. social Costs
4. Final
perspective and consideraciones
5. paper of the
Europea Union
Bibliography
Introduction
attitude more
extended between analysts and western intelectuales before the Algerian social
implosion is the perplexity. The European políticos and diplomats, in spite of
their preoccupation, are igualmente paralizados. Algeria, that until not long
ago was mirror of the hopes of progress of so many Third World Countries and
prototype of an independent política of development, is today a nightmare.
This perplexity
is propagado a vision of catástrofe Algerian like test tube of the theory of
"choque of civilizations", obviously staged in Algeria by the
conflict between the "French party" (hizb França), represented
by the Army and elites of the businesses and intellectuals, and the majority
Arab population and to bereber. The cause of the present crisis would be in the
incapacity of the Islam to adapt to the modernity, crystallized in a system of
more or less mixed Capitalism and a representativa democracy with guarantees
of the human rights (that, anyway, parece to respect too much the actual
pro-western regime either), when not in the natural inclinación to the
terrorism of the Islamic fundamentalists (Glucksmann, 1998). In essence, this
one is the predominante visión - impli'citamente-in the chancelleries europeas;
the same one which legislativas took them to feel a certain one alleviated cuando
the suspension of the elections, in January of 1992, an almost surely avoided
triumph of the Islamic Front of Salvacio'n (FIS), that evoked the scene of the
feared implantación of a islámica policy to image and similarity of those of
Iran or Sudan.
From comprensivas
positions with the tradition and the sociology of the Islam, the only serious
intentos of analysis of the causes aim at some of these three conspiraciones:
- or is
the Ejército, like apprentice of wizard interested in maintaining a violence
climate that justifies its perpetuación in the power like only guarantor of
the order, when nonpromotor Grupos Isla'micos Armados (GIA) to stoke the
discords between Islamic groups, according to it assures an old official
deserter anónimo (Der Spiegel, 1998);
- or is a
perverse strategy for determinados intereses economic. The most recent
exponent of this thesis (to which also Goytisolo adheres, 1997) is Alain Joxe
(1997), according to which:
Any observer of the slaughters organized in rich earth and of urban expansion
knows that it is not assassinated in mass in this class of territories without
there is behind a financial operation: either to recreate the large estates,
causing the hasty flight of the members of the cooperatives founded after the
independencia, or to clear the land with a view to a speculation urbana;
- or is
legado poisoned of the French colonial time.
While that the
argelina situation has deserved cultural, religious análisis (Goytisolo, 1994
and 1997), social politicians and (Naïr, 1995), misses an economic approach to
the causes of present catástrofe social. That it is precisamente what tries
to make this work preliminary, that, with the handling exclusivamente of
sources of secondary información, propone to become one first systematization
summary of the características, the evolution, the implicaciones and the
perspective of the model of Algerian development within the framework of a ampler
project of investigation sobe the countries of the Maghreb and their interacción
with the European Union.
Although it is
evident that "no unilateral explanation can summarize this crisis"
(Naïr, 1998), does not fit doubt, on the other hand, that, understanding the
present degeneration of the situación in Algeria, is precise to remember,
among other factors, intrinsic dynamics and the social effects of the policy of
industrialization and operation of the oil resources applied during the
Seventies and first half of the eighty, that, during two decades, enjoyed
predicamento of most of the theoreticians of the economy of the development.
Algeria offers an example, almost of manual, the failure of the policy of
industrialización by sustitución of imports. The two main consecuencias -
almost logics, views from present ours perspectiva of this policy were - in
flagrant contradiction with the rhetoric and the official ideology an outer
defendant dependency of the Algerian economy and the economic marginación of
ample segments of the population, which has constituted the broth of culture of
the Islamic fundamentalismo.
In last
instance, the Algerian crisis constitutes a conflict by the appropriation of
the enormous rents of petroleum.
1. model of
poscolonial development in Algeria: 1962-1988
case of Algeria
is specially paradigmático because, during the Seventies, the theory of desarrollo
attributed character to him of model of mobilization of a natural resource as
it bases of a development process that combines industrialization with the
agrarian revolution (Nohlen, 1980).
In the five
lustrums that followed independence, the Algerian economy was formed like an
economy of central planning with state property of production means. The
declared objectives of this economic planning consisted of promoting an
endogenous economic development that assured Algerian economic independence
with respect to the international markets and the multinational companies, like
guarantee of their political independence. instrumento of this policy of
development had to constitute it the valuation of the Algerian natural
resources, specially the hydrocarbons. Thus, in the international scope,
Algeria was one of the promoters more decided of the New Economic Order the
International, whose basic postulates nowadays constitute almost contraejemplo
of the Algerian economy.
Although,
initially, the ideology of the Front of National Liberación that governed the
country in this period favored the colectivización and the autogestión,
actually these were only implanted in agriculture, after the expropriation of
the colonial agricultural operations and its conversion in cooperatives. In the
industrial sector, in which there was to be created ex- I novate an own
industrial capacity, was decided as of 1965 on a model of central planning of
the State in which, formally, the property of producción means was public,
although it articulated in companies managed by a tecnocrática class with methods
similar to those of the private companies. The objective era to turn to
Algeria, for 1980, in a industrializado country.
Parallelly, some
elements of a State of well-being were implanted, made specific fundamentally
in strong subventions of products of first necesidad and in the infraestructuras
financing de and servicios of education (universal escolarización from
1973) and toilets. But this social policy was overflowed by the joint effect of
explosive demographic dynamics, the rural exodus and the fluctuations of the
income of the State caused by the variations of the prices of petroleum.
1.1 Hydrocarbon
dowry and operation
Algerian
independent government inherited of metrópoli a incipiente petroliferous
industry managed by multinacionales companies in regime of concessions.
Immediately after independence, in 1964, Sonatrach was created, that, after the
conclusion of the process of nationalizations in 1971[ 1 ], one became the public monopoly of the
hydrocarbon operation and, with it, not only in the most important company of
the country, but in the spine of the Algerian industry and the economy.
While that in
1962 the hydrocarbon exports only supposed 12% of the total, from the crisis of
the petroleum of 1973 east percentage year has been located after year over
93%. The income of petroleum suppose between 20% and 30% of the added value
gross and near 60% of the income of the State.
Of this way,
from 1974 the Algerian economy can be described without exaggerating like one rent
economy, in that the income derived from the hydrocarbon export constitute
the fundamental source of accumulation and financing of the development
process. Between 1962 and 1996, the hydrocarbon export has reported to Algeria
total currency income of near 240.000 million dollars, that, after to have
surpassed the 14.000 million dollars in 1981, have become stabilized in the
last five years something below the 10.000 million annual dollars, although
with ascending tendency thanks to the increase of the natural gas exports.
This it causes
that the main determining variable of the Algerian economic growth from then
was the internacionales prices of petroleum (it see Graph 1), to that are tie
also (although with a certain phase angle) the prices of the natural gas. In
any case, Algeria is a country price-aceptante in the international markets of
hydrocarbons, since its total production (1.325 million daily barrels if the
derivatives of the natural gas are included, of them approximately 750.000
crude petroleum barrels) never (OPEC) has reached 5% of the production of the
Organization of Exporting Petroleum Countries nor 2% of world-wide the total
production.
Thus, the fall
of the prices of the petroleum registered between 1981 (when it got to reach
the 40 dollars by barrel) and 1986 (when dólares surpassed the the 14 barrier
of) was the detonating that exploded the contradicciones of the model of
Algerian development, causing an abrupt reduction of the currency income of
near 80%. In the last ten years, like it can be seen in Graph 2, the prices of
petroleum have maintained a relative stability to levels next to the 16 dollars
by barrel, that, given the present levels of production, do not guarantee to
Algeria a currency flow sufficient to finance, at least, its necessities of
investment[ 2 ], and that determines rates of economic
growth only slightly superior to those of demographic crecimiento.
GRAFICO 1
Algeria:
Growth of the P.I.B. and prices of petroleum
*
Source: World Tables 1993. World Bank. Average rate of annual growth in
real terms. For period 1993-1996, International Financial Statistics 1997.
**
Source: International Financial Statistics 1997. Monetario Bottom The International.
Counted price al of petroleum Dubai Fateh, in dollars of EE.UU./barril
In part like
answer to this situation, in 1991 liberalized the sector of hydrocarbons,
giving entered two international oil dozens of compañías (headed by North
American the Arc and the Briton British Petroleum, and between that also they
are the Spaniards Repsol and Cepsa) the activities of prospección and
operation of the resources by means of projects of direct cooperation with
Sonatrach (until then, the foreign companies had participated solely, although
profusely, in quality of contractors). The most visible effect of this process
has been the recuperación of the natural gas exports, whose fiscal treatment
and of incentives to the foreign investment was compared to petroleum in the
Hydrocarbon Law of 1991.
Production total
of gas natural, something more than half leaves to Europe through both great
gasoductos intercontinental that unites Algeria with Europe, Transmediterráneo
(that unites Algeria with Italy from 1983) and Euromagrebí (operative from
1996), which he is the one that it supplies to Spain, in addition to a Portugal
and Morocco. Italy is, at the moment, the main client of the Algerian gas.
Although gasoducto Euromagrebí crosses 530 kilometers of Algerian ground, the
insecurity caused in the country by the actions of the armed Islamic groups,
although has driven away to an important part of the foreign technicians in
Algeria, has not seriously affected at no moment nor to the commerce of gas not
even the development of the sector, in permanent ebullición from the arrival
of the foreign companies.
Without embargo,
the petroleum dowry, in addition to leaving to Algeria to albur of the
quotation of the crude one in the international markets, is subject to two
restricciones structural that, although basically ignored in the past, without
a doubt they will condition his paper in economía Algerian in the future:
limited character of the proven petroleum reserves and the dynamics of the
Algerian demographic crecimiento (see section 1.4).
By what it
concerns to first of them, the reserves proven of crude are based in 9.200
million equivalent petroleum barrels, that to the rate of operation of 1995
would reach after something more than twenty years.[ 3 ] The natural gas reserves, however, it does
not seem that they are going to exhaust itself in a foreseeable future, being considered
in 4,5 trillions of cubic meters (36.000 million equivalent petroleum barrels,
for 710 years of consumption to the present rate, although surely the real
reserves are superior). In the case of the natural gas, after one decade of
excess of capacity as a result of the fall of exportaciones of liquefied
natural gas to the United States from 1982, from 1991 Algeria it arranges of a
safe demand and in ascent in the countries of the south of Europe. The entrance
of the internacionales multinationals has accelerated the descubrimientos of
new reserves of petroleum and natural gas. All it allows the Algerian
authorities to augur an increase of the currency income of 30% in the next
years (the estimations of Sonatrach aim at least at 13.500 million dollars in
the year 2000), although open some interrogantes to more long term, when the
petroleum reserves begin to exhaust themselves.
1.2 Industrial
policy
To margin to
explain why the rent of petroleum has not contribuido, not only to generate a
process of desarrollo, but at least to reach a certain social peace, the model
of Algerian industrial development serves perfectly like ilustrativo example of
which the industrialización of an economy is not a suficiente condition for
its development, in individual if the industrial sector not Integra in an
endogenous process of technological development and of the internal demand. In
fact, it could even be used like contraejemplo of an industrialization process
that blocks the development (Béraud, 1995).
Drugged by the
manna of the oil rents and the theories of industrialization by substitution of
then importaciones in it rows in the Third World, dirigentes economic
Algerians were sent to an ambitious process of industrialization commanded by
the State like great investor, who has deserved epítetos like "faith in
industrialization" (Balta, 1994) or "industrialista ideology"
(Naïr, 1998).
After first
stage of nationalizations, as of 1975 the Algerian poscolonial regime embarked
in a policy of promotion of the "industries industrializantes"
articulated around the construction (or rather "key in hand" would
have to be said to the acquisition) of great "poles of development"
that adopted the form of gigantic complejos of the heavy industry (the iron
and steel complex of the Hadjar, near Annaba, that gives use to 22.000 workers,
constitute the monument by antonomasia to this conception of the industrial
development). The theoretical principles of this approach aseguraban that the
development of these industries would generate a process of cumulative growth
("through the structural transformation of the interindustrial matrix and
the modification of the production function") that would contribute to the
endogenous development of the productive forces (thanks to the demand of goods
of equipment induced by the agrarian reform and excessive of productivity in
agriculture and the demand of consumer goods generated by the distribution of
the excess). This strategy explicitly tried to promote a development level that
allowed the country to surpass the possible exhaustion of its hydrocarbon
sources without serious economic traumas.
Everything this
industrializador effort absorbed total investments considered in 100.000
million dollars. This shows the voluntarista character of the Algerian process
of industrialization, if we consider that, between 1965 and 1980, the Gross
Formation of Fixed capital absorbed an average of 40% of the GIP (peaky of
until 60%), although is certain that around half of that proportion it corresponded
to the own development of the hydrocarbon sector (Béraud, 1995). This
accumulation of capital in the industry was in damage not only of the
production of consumer goods, but of the pressing investments in urban infraestructuras
required by the fast process of population increase and city-planning.
Although during
the period of more intense industrialización the Algerian industry grew to a
rate near 10% of average, this at no moment had to the crecimiento of the
productivity, but to the permanent inyección of capital in form of new
investments in a small number of sectors of the heavy industry (iron and steel
industry, refining and liquefaction of hydrocarbons, fertilizers, metalmecánica
and little more). This industrial concentración, although contributed to
increase the industrial manual labor of one to two million workers in one
decade, it was incapable to create sufficient job like maintaining the rate of
the combined effect of the rural exodus and the population increase.
By another part,
the magnitude of these efforts was not crowned by the success. As it can be
seen in Graph 2, the manufacturera industry has practically not increased its
participation in the GIP in all the poscolonial period, and globally it is not
possible to affirm that Algeria, against which usually it thinks, has become a
industrialized economy.
industrialization
strategy failed - if abstraction becomes of far from it trivial questions like
the extension of corrupción- by two fundamental structural reasons. First it
was that the Algerian leaders, with a cultural formation francófila and
enfrentados with the challenge to construct a modern industry from the
anything, did not doubt in even resorting to the great companies multinacionales
and foreign technicians for the construction and the management of the great
industrial plants, without worrying about the development of an own technology.
If the reference to the interindustrial matrix is precise to understand this
failure it is indeed because the great Algerian industries convirtieron, in
the best one of the cases, "industries of enclave" without no type of
pull by the side of the demand nor of the supply on other industrial, incapable
sectors, on the other hand, to take the relief from the exports from the oil
sector (on which the thickness of its demand or its provisions depends) and,
therefore, to restrain the unstoppable petrolización of the Algerian economy.
In fact, a common characteristic of the Algerian industry is the excess of
capacity, with a rate of very low use (practically always inferior to 50% and
not very often superior to 30%).
But more serious
still it was the other reason that made fail the Algerian industrialización
and laid the the foundations of its excluding character of the development of
agriculture and the creation of use. The strategy of industrialization by
substitution of imports, instead of being based on the appropriation of the
excess of the agricultural sector, based all its process of accumulation in the
rent of petroleum, which in the end would be ominous, among other reasons
because the State Algerian, although able to control the external economic
distribution of excessive the appropriate one by means of the export of
hidrocarburos, does not control the conditions of its formation, that depend
in this case on the evolution on the supply and the demand of energy in the
international markets. Consequences of this shade are patents if we compared
the Algerian case in period 1965-1980 with the implanted process of estatalista
industrialization (by the way, with a remarkable initial success) in the Soviet
Union from 1923, that served as model, sometimes explicit one.
idea-force of
this policy of industrialization consisted of creating a heavy industry that
impelled the development of national intermediate industries. But in the
Algerian case three fundamental differences with respect to Soviet
industrialization occurred that they determined his failure.
In first place,
whereas the Soviet Union had an ample internal market able to absorb the
production of the heavy industry, was not that the case of Algeria, that it
relatively has a population reduced and a relatively small useful territory.
Secondly, Algeria arranged, unlike the Soviet industry (immersed in the
construction of the "socialism in a single country" until the
Thirties), of the access to the technology "key in hand" and the
attendance of technicians and foreign companies, which, although facilitated
the immediate development of the industries, prevented the acquisition of an
own technological base, laying the the foundations of an outer dependency.
Finally, something still more important, whereas the Soviet Union financed its
industrialization by means of the appropriation of the agricultural rents (with
which the agricultural work became the measurement of the value, that allowed
the fixation of the internal prices), Algeria trusted the rents of petroleum
exclusively to finance its industrial development, whose quantity it oscillated
to the compass of the fluctuations of the international prices of hydrocarbons,
on which own Algeria did not have no influence (except for which it was derived
from his participation in the cartel of OPEC). This it supposed, as it will be
seen immediately, the abandonment of agriculture as it bases productive of the
national economy and, parallelly, the absence in Algeria of a measurement of
the value that allowed to the economic calculation and the rational planning of
the allocation of resources. But, when not integrating agriculture in the
national economic system, one marginalized simultaneously of the economic
system to the rural, majority population until the Eighties.
In last the ten
years, the situation of the Algerian industry has been degraded as a result of
the lack of maintenance of the equipment, the lack of raw materials and pieces
of spare part caused of the currency shortage, and the premature obsolescencia
due to the negligence. The rates of use of the capacity have fallen still more,
until inferior levels in many cases to 30% had, partly, to these evils and,
partly, the contraction of the demand caused by the forced increase of the
prices derived from the increase of the concerned insumos. In general, the
industries that have been able to maintain their production are very
inefficient.
reconversion of
some of once strategic the industrial companies to the concerned product
distribution - after eliminarse in 1996 the prohibition of import of a hundred
of products, specially machinery and consumer goods puts in evidence the
demolition situation that lives east sector at moments in which the contraction
of the budget of the State and the policy of liberalización force many public
companies to generate value added by any means, at least is for surviving and
maintaining the "rents of situation" of its direction and its
personnel.
With the aim to
improve the efficiency of the companies and to facilitate their privatization,
between 1984 and 1989 many great industrial companies in smaller and manageable
units of production were divided (until totalizing 2.800 public companies), and
the entrance in the sector of the private capital, that during last the two
decades had taken refuge in industries of low content tecnológico, like the
textile was allowed. The reorientation of the industrial policy completes with
the priority granted to the consumer goods and the promotion of new routes of
commercialization, as much commits like external, of the producción of the
existing industry.
1.3 Agricultural
policy
But if the
effects of the industrialization policy were devastadores, it must to that it
was accompanied by an almost absolute negligence of agriculture. The Algerian
agrarian problem perfectly has been synthesized by Samir Naïr (1995):
From World War II the central socioeconómico problem of Algeria is the
transformation of the social position of the peasantry. [...] But the power [
of the FLN and the Army, arisen from the decolonization of 1962] ignored purely
and simply these questions. [...] the rural classes were pushed towards the
city and they went away turning a miserable urban population little by little.
[...] From mid the Seventies, the marginalized town of the cities, coming from
the field in its majority, takes refuge in the religion like radical
alternative to the system. [...] and the Chadli regime, occupied in the
distribution of privileges between the groups leaders, did not
include/understand that it treated, not of a question political or cultural,
but fundamentally social.
stages of this
process are the following ones. After independence, the agro-alimentary
operations that proliferated during the colonial time in the coastal strip of
Algeria (a great exporter from these products to the French metropolis then,
besides to cover 93% with their agricultural necessities) were nationalized and
colectivizadas in 6.000 cooperatives. In 1970, the agricultural products still
supposed 19.9% of the Algerian exports to the European Economic Community.
The later
decade, agriculture entered an inefficiency spiral (partly caused by the
absorption of many veterans military in the agricultural cooperatives) that is
united to an almost complete negligence of the economic authorities towards
this sector, negligence that arrived at the end of nor so at least using the
contingents of export established by the EEC for magrebíes agricultural
products:[ 4 ] in 1977, agriculture already as soon as it
generated 10% of the Gross Inner Product, and not even the incipiente national
fertilizer industry and the mechanization of the field were able to stop the
declivity of the agrarian yields.
result, in
addition to the expulsion of the field of one leaves important from the rural
population, without it meant that an economic alternative in the cities was
offered to them better, is that, at the moment, Algerian agriculture satisfies
less with 2% of the national nourishing necessities (it see section 1.5).
In 1987, the
great agricultural conglomerates were divided in small deprived agricultural
companies. Since then, certain importance to agricultural products has been
granted again as the fresh olive oil, wine or dates (that are the main product
of export after hydrocarbons), although have not been able to surpass the two
basic restrictions of the Algerian agricultura: the dependency of the
rainfall, very variable (only 3% of the national territory, about 7 million
hectares, are cultivable) and the barriers to the export to the European
markets that the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union imposes, that
makes difficult the recreation of a national agro-alimentary industry.
1.4 Population,
urbanization and unemployment
Algeria it has a
population considered by the World Bank in about 30 million people in 1997 (the
last made census data of April of 1987), of who 75% have less than 30 years (in
1962, the country had 10 million inhabitants). More than half of her it lives
in urban centers, mainly in the suburbs of the three great cities (Algiers,
Orán and Constantina), in conditions of serious deficiencies of infrastructure,
specially of house (the World Bank esteem that the hacinamiento arrives, in
many districts, to an average of eight people by house of three pieces). The
young people feel excluded from the modernization and until from the simple
possibility of constructing a family, after having lost their traditional keys
of rural socialización.
If well it is
certain that the strict policy of demographic control applied by the Algerian
government has rendered its fruits, reducing rate of population increase to
2.7% annual (it seems that in both last years it would have fallen below 2%),
the extreme youth of the Algerian population it foretells a continued increase
of its population (the projections indicate that in less than fifteen years it
will exceed 40 million) and causes that the increase of the active populace
surpasses significantly to the population increase, with a rate of 4 % annual
(about 250.000 young people get up every year to the work market). Although the
rate of unemployment officially recognized is of 28% (2.100000 people), the
real numbers surely are superior, and in any case they show a tendency the
rise.
These two
structural demographic tendencies (the pressure demográfica, mainly if it is
compared with around 300.000 km2 equipment that barren Algerian
geography offers, a coastal strip of thousand two hundred kilometers in length
and about 250 km wide; and the dynamics of the active populace) already
imagines the problematic one that must consider any economic approach to the
Algerian crisis, as much internally as from a perspective international and,
more concretely, European.
A internal
scale, the main challenge that confronts the Algerian económica policy is the
one to generate economic opportunities - use for those young people who flow in
enormous amounts to the market of Algerian work. In fact, they constitute all a
social category already - the one of hittistas or aguantaparedes -, and
without doubt forms the sociological substrate of which the Islamic guerrilla
nourishes itself.[ 5 ]
It stops the
Mediterranean countries of the European Union, the demographic and social
dynamics of Algeria raises the phantom of the massive emigration. In the case
of France, the familiar plots of the 800.000 immigrants of Algerian origin who
live the country put a face to him in the daily life to this fear.
1.5 The outer
dependency
If by something
the Algerian economy is characterized is by extraordinario potential
destabilizing of the outer sector.
Dependency
commercial
undesired consequence
- but inevitable of the model of development that has been described was an
outer defendant dependency of the Algerian economy, as much by the side of the
exports like by the one of the imports. The currency flow derived from the
hydrocarbon sale caused a chronic overvaluation of the Algerian currency, which
constituted a fort incentive for the import in damage of the national
production (the well-known phenomenon of syndrome Dutch). Parallelly,
the external restriction plasmaba in the controls of changes, that strictly
lmitaban the access to currencies, giving rise itself to a black market (in
1994, for example, while the official parity was of 41.7 to dinares/dólar, in
the black market one quoted over the 65 to dinares/dólar). In fact, the income
by exportaciones (together with the remittances of emigrants, that have gone
disminuyendo from the Seventies) have not been enough, in the three last
decades, to avoid the endemic deficit of the balance by current account.
By the side of
the exports, more from 95% of the currency income of the country comes from the
hydrocarbon export (divididas, approximately by thirds, between crude
petroleum, natural gas and liquefied natural gas), with which they are to albur
of the swings of the international markets of these raw materials or of the
quotation of the dollar. More than two third parts of this production he is
destined to western Europe, irreplaceable market for Algeria.
By the side of
the imports, as much the basic product consumption as the fundamental insumos
of capital for the industry must be concerned. Algeria nowadays concerns 70% of
the wheat that consumes (he is the first world-wide importer of hard wheat),
the 100% of the tea, the coffee and sugar, 97% of dry vegetables, 95% of the oil[ 6 ] and 90% of medicines. The import of these
basic supplyings has become a strategic-political preoccupation of first order
of any Algerian government, as well as a structural factor of demand of
currencies (that 30% of the exports absorb. The successive devaluations and the
irreplaceable character of an important part of the Algerian imports caused
that, in 1995, these supposed 50% of the GIP (the double of the normal numbers
during the previous decade).
This dependency
is centered specially in the countries of the European Union (particularly
Italy, France and Spain), with which Algeria concentrates the two third parts
of its commercial interchanges, as much of export as of importación.
Macroeconomically,
1996 supposed an historical landmark for the Algerian economy, since, for the
first time, it was able to surpass his endemic deficit of balance by current
account, reaching a surplus for the sum of 4.200 million dollars. But this
surplus has somewhat of mirage: it depends directly on the international
quotation of crude petroleum[ 7 ] and it camouflages the fact that the
effective imports stay depressed below the real demand thanks to the policy of
structural adjustment and the controls of changes[ 8 ].
A this
dependency of the international markets adds the extreme Algerian vulnerability
to the fluctuations of the dollar, that vehicula as much by its effect on the
price of petroleum like by being denominated in dollars, directly or
indirectly, most of the imports and the thickness of the external debt.
Dependency
financier
Weigh to the
enormous oil rent, the model of intensive industrialization in capital,
directed by the State and based on the purchase of foreign technology, together
with the intense dependency of concerned products, originated an increasing
external indebtedness that, at the end of the Seventies, ascended to 19.365
million dollars.
This it turned
to Algeria an extremely vulnerable country to the evolution of the types of
interest the international markets and to the type of change of the dollar, in
which they were denominated most of the credits, as it is left patent if one
thinks that, in the fifteen later years, the debt ascended until the 32.610
million dollars that reached in 1995. After the three successive
renegotiations, its volume has been reduced to 27.500 million dollars. These
renegociaciones became imperative when, at the beginning of the Nineties, the
service of the external debt got to absorb 77% (in 1991) of the income by
exports, a situation that has only improved slightly after the renegotiation of
1994, manteniéndose, however, at levels next to 40%.
1.6 Conclusions
main conclusion
which it is possible to extract of the "model of poscolonial
development" in Algeria is that it did not generate a process of genuine
economic development, defined in terms of a combination of maintained economic
growth, significant transformation of the productive structure and improves of
the level and the quality of life of the population. Although between 1973 and
1985 Algeria experienced a fast economic growth thanks to the rents of
petroleum, most of the population it was excluded from its fruits, and the
industrialización of the economy wished by the Algerian economic authorities
colapsó as soon as let flow the currency investments necessary to acquire the
technology and the goods of equipment of the industry. In Graph 2 it is
possible to be observed how, although in the four first lustrums of
independence the Algerian productive structure seemed to evolve slowly -
although towards a own industrial guideline of a developed country, in the
three following this tendency has been truncated, experiencing a certain
backward movement towards the colonial productive structure.
Datos
1960 1980 1995
Agriculture
21 10 13
Industry
Manufacturing
9 10 9
Rest industry
22 44 37
Services
48 36 41
Source: World Bank, Report on the
world-wide development
After to
register the New Economic Order the International proclaimed by the UNCTAD in
1974, Algeria was turned a paradigmático example of underdeveloped, dual
economy, extravertida, specialized and disarticulated. In synthesis, Algeria
is an economy multiply employee of the international markets of their only
exportable product (the hydrocarbons), of the international credit (and the
condicionalidad that takes prepared the necessary periodic renegotiation of its
debt) and of international suppliers for their basic products of consumption
(arranged in addition to give facilities of commercial credit).
Although the
redistributive social policy applied by the State has located to Algeria
between the countries with a Indice de Desarrollo Humano (IDH) average, its
human development does not correspond with the degree of reached economic
development, as it is deduced of the difference between the category that
occupies according to the GIP per capita (put 65 of the world, in parity of the
spending power in dollars) and its category according to the IDH (put 82), that
is of -17 (-37 in 1990; The PNUD, 1992, 1997). This indicates a deficient
process of transformación of the economic development developing human.
If it is certain
well that the nominal fall of the GIP by inhabitant (who has happened of 2.590
dollars in 1986 to 1.650 dollars in 1994, according to the World Bank) must fundamentally
to the devaluation of dinar, in a country in which most of the consumer goods
they are concerned and in which they have liberalized most of the prices, it is
a relatively good indicator of the capacity of real purchase of the population.
distorsionador
effect of the oil rent and the dominion of the main economic agent - the Be in
favor of a military and tecnocrática elite crystallized in a corruption very
extended and in which the main circuits of distribution of the rent and the
wealth, instead of obeying to the economic flows or the explicit model of
distribution, had like axis the clientelism and the nepotism. more popular
expression of this climate of corruption is the saying of which "to rob to
beylik (used term to talk about to the Algerian State during the Ottoman
occupation) it is not to rob ", and most dramatic for the Algerian economy
estimaciones officials (always conservadoras) of 37.000 million dollars of
flight of capitals. "trabendo" or contraband, particularly with
Marruecos and France, it has established authentic parallel channels of
distribution to those of the State and it has been elevated in a true form of
life with its own subculture for whole segments of the population.
rent was
concentrated mainly in the small proportion of the population (not more of a 20
percent) integrated in the socioeconomic system, constituted by the political
elite, the government employees and the Army, a small private bourgeoisie and
the class formed by the industrial workers, in addition to the intellectuals,
whereas the rest of the population - impoverished infraurban population,
unemployed farmers, young people it was marginalized. The social State inicialmente
conceived by the regime of Bumedian, that canalized part of the rents of
petroleum to the financing of social necessities like the house, the
subventions to products of first necessity, the health and the education, was
overflowed by the population increase and the necessities of economic
adjustment derived from the own model of chosen development. The abandonment to
its luck of the impoverished masses of the suburbs of the cities originated
displeased extending and turned the social question, more than the own exigency
of democratization, in the touchstone of all the political transition
undertaken by the regime[ 9 ].
In October 1988,
this displeasure exploded in a big wave of popular revolts that forced the
regime to reframe their political strategy, gave rise to a timid political
opening and democratization in the political order (that culminated, as it is
known, with the electoral triumph of the FIS aborted by the military regime).
The deep motivation of these "revolts of the bread" obeys to a as
simple slogan as the scarcity and the basic shortage of foods and other
necessities.
But, of the
economic scope, the answer consisted of intensifying a policy of adjustment
characterized by the liberalization of markets and the desregulación of the
most sensible sectors and by the application of a strict program of economic
austerity imposed by the technicians of the International Monetary Fund (the
IMF). The repression of the revolts and the new return from nut to the
desperate economic situation of the Algerian population paid the capitalization
of the displeasure on the part of the only political force that was formed like
real alternative to the existing regime: the islamistas parties.
Even to risk of
simplifying, it is possible to see in the Algerian social crisis a process of
conflicting reassignment of the social and political power in the new frame of
a market economy that are displaced to the prevailing authoritarian estatismo
in the last 30 years, without being able to supplant, nevertheless, elites the
military, tecnocráticas and administrative characteristics of the same one.
From this perspective, the solution only can come from the scope of the
political economy, and not of merely formal a political process or a military
solution to the conflict. Even recognizing the limited paper that the
international cooperation can carry out in this process, the distributivos
effects of the activity of multinacionales oil which they have settled down in
Algeria in this decade and the possible impact of the technical, financial and
commercial cooperation with the European Union can influence in the movement of
the Algerian civil conflict.
2. importance of
Algeria
To margin of the
academic questions that the Algerian problem raises and of the risks derived
from the instability in a geographically so next region, are at least two
reasons for which what is sucediendo in Algeria it has an extraordinary
trascendencia for Europe, not only from the point of view of the diplomacy,
but even of the internal policy: European power dependency with respect to the
Algerian natural gas and the phantom of the massive emigration to Europe and I
infect of the "badly Islamic one".
2.1 Gas
provision
projections of
evolution of the demand indicate that, of here to year 2000, the European gas
consumption will present/display a rate of accumulated annual growth of 3%.
If we took the
case from Spain, according to Plan Energe'tico Nacional (PEN), between 1995 and
the year the 2000 gas consumption in Spain, that already supposes a 11% of the
consumed primary energy in this country, will have been increased in a 71%
(until the 12.000 million m3 annual); of this national gas
consumption, at the beginning of 1997 36% are canalized through gasoducto
Euromagrebí, to which another 24% of concerned liquefied natural gas of Algeria
are also added (that, altogether, contributes more of 60% of the gas imports).
The PEN anticipates that the increase of the gas consumption serves to supply
to the domestic consumption of the great cities, the industry (that supposes
61% of the consumption) and the co-generation of electrical energy. If considers,
therefore, that the Spanish power model has been planned on the base of a
sensible increase of the gas consumption sustained in an abundant supply of
Algerian natural gas (an alternative power plant less polluting agent than the
petroleum, which it allows in addition to reduce to the dependency respect to
this hydrocarbon that still contributes 53% of the national power consumption,
particularmente if the little political viability of the nuclear energy like
alternative considers), and that another 21% of the gas necessities come from
Libya, will be understood the power risk that for Spain it supposes the
Algerian civil war. The same can be said of other countries of the south of the
Mediterranean, specially Italy.
In the rest of
the European Union, the gas consumption is proporcionalmente greater,
exceeding 20% the consumption of national energy, although the degree of
dependency with respect to the Algerian gas is smaller (thanks, among other
things, to the ramifications of gasoducto that comes from Siberia and to the
greater proximity of the gas of the Netherlands, although the production of
this country will decline as of year 2000 by agotamiento of the reserves).
2.2
the phantom of the massive emigration and I infect
demographic
pressure, the social malaise and the lack of economic opportunities are other
so many factors that can impel the Algerian population to emigrate (the
estimations indicate that 400.000 have left Algeria in the last five years).
The direct relation between the uneasiness climate, not to mention terror, that
reigns in the Algerian society, the lack of personal economic perspective and
the migration has been shown, for example, in the fact that France, the natural
destiny of the thickness of the Algerian emigración, indeed imposed
restrictions to the entrance of Algerian citizens (which until then they did
not need visa) in 1988, the year of the revolts. Since then, the immigratory
policy has not let become hardened.
danger of I
infect can be understood in a double sense: in the first place, I infect of the
Islamic problem to Europe, propagated through the Algerian population in
Europe. But, by serious that this danger can seem, less worrisome it is not the
possibility of I infect of the islamista phenomenon to neighboring countries,
like Tunisia or Morocco, equally next to Europe and with demográficas, social
structures and economic similars to those of Algeria.
3. Evaluation of
the economic reforms
fall of the
prices of petroleum and, therefore, of the income by exports it caused a
recession that was translated in negative increases of the GIP by inhabitant
between 1985 and 1994. To the estrangulamiento of the balance of payments and
the fall of importaciones the increase of the load ratio of the debt was added
to him until intolerable levels (the projections for 1994 indicated that the
service of the debt would surpass to the currency income by exportaciones).
The contradictions of the model of Algerian development became untenable, until
the point to force the regime to undertake the reforms.
3.1
structural Ajuste
Pressed through
international the economic crisis, the depression of the prices of petroleum
(on which the prices of the gas are also indicated, and that passed of 44
dollars the barrel at the end of 1979 to 13 dollars in 1986, to begin to appear
later and to become stabilized during several years in a level of between 16
and 18 dollars) and the fallen consequence of the income of currencies, as well
as by the enormous exigencies of the service of the external debt, the regime
undertook first programa of reform made specific in the Plan 1985-1989
(seventh from independence), in which it as much granted a greater paper to the
private capital in the industry as in agriculture.
With the brief
parenthesis of the Government of Belaid Abdesselan (1992-1993), that it tried
to recover the socialist essences of the Algerian model, the rate and the
configuration of the economic reforms have advanced since then to are of the
negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, key for the renegotiation of
the external debt, the concession of commercial financing and the arrival of
foreign investment. Thus, in 1988-1989 a first agreement was celebrated stand-by
of 18 months, followed in 1991 by a second agreement which it supposed a
radical devaluation of dinar, that happened of 6.7 to dinares/dolar in 1988 to
12 in 1990 and 21 in 1991, and introduced a drastic cut in the public
subventions, whose cost had reached in 1991 6.5% of the GIP like reaction to
the social revolts of 1988. These subventions were replaced by a personal
social subsidy of 120 dinares monthly from which something more than half of
the population benefitted, whose benefit it was restricted in 1996 to more of a
million people (what it turns to him an authentic social wage for the poorest
classes), increasing its quantity in a 500%, until the 15.8 monthly dollars.
Once concluded
these agreements, between 1988 and 1993 the Algerian authorities resisted to
ask for a renegotiation of the debt, partly to maintain internally their image
of independence before autoridades international financiers (sensitivity
before any form of neocolonialismo is specially acute in Algeria) and partly
not to see itself forced to apply socialmente explosive reforms. But the
strong Algerian dependencia of the importaciones of basic products and its
difficulties of balance of payments extremely make it vulnerable to any
restriction of the commercial financing of their international partners and,
therefore, they force it to be put under the condicionalidad imposed by these
before any disturbance of its trade balance.
Thus, the
increase of the types of interest and the type of change of the dollar and the
victory of the credits contracted within the framework of the first program of
adjustment, as of 1993, caused a new crisis of liquidity. That forced to the
Algerian regime to go to its creditors internacionales to ask for a
reescalonamiento of its debt.
Like previous
condition to the renegotiation of the debt, the indebted grouped international
public in the Club of Paris forced Algiers to accept a plan of structural
adjustment defined by the IMF, that took shape in a third agreement stand-by
celebrated with that institución in April of 1994-April of 1995, with vocation
to prorogue itself more during three years. As a result of this agreement, in
May of 1995 Algeria it received from the IMF a credit of 1.800 million dollars
for Extended Service of the Bottom.
priorities of
the Program of Structural Adjustment were centered in the liberalization of the
economy and the outer opening and the macroeconomic saneamiento, particularly
in terms of monetary rigor and control of the public deficit. A new devaluación
of dinar of 40% in March of 1994 was applied (establishing the parity in 36 to
dinares/dólar), that seriously deteriorated the relation of intercambio of
Algerian products. Parallelly, the foreign trade and the prices liberalized,
and in 1993 a favorable code of investments for the foreign investment was
adopted (not only in terms of guarantees, but also of incentives like fiscal
exemptions), that is not applied solely in the sector of hydrocarbons. The
deficit of the State, that was of 8.7% of the GIP in 1993, was reduced to 4.3%
in 1994, until reaching a surplus of 3% in 1996 that allowed to initiate the
amortization of a part of the main one of the debt. This was obtained reducing
all a series of subsidies to the consumer goods (some of first necessity) and
increasing the prices to the consumption of the energy basically.
After to be put
under the exigencies of the IMF, Algeria obtained the reescalonamiento in two
phases of 10.000 million its external debt to a term of fifteen years, with
four of deficiency. In 1995, it obtained a complementary agreement of
renegotiation of its debt with the private banks of the Club of London, by a
total amount of 3.200 million dollars.
corolario of the
program of adjustment and liberalization constitutes the program of
privatizations undertaken in April of 1996, this time under the auspices of the
World Bank (in exchange for a credit of 350 million dollars). Directed in
principle to privatize more than 500 public companies, in its majority small
and medium, it is advancing with many difficulties (in 1997 the privatization
of one fourth part of the affected companies had been culminated), although
apparently inexorably.
3.2
Student model
"brave and
determined application of the duro program of adjustment and reform"[ 10 ] structural on the part of the Algerian
Government it seems to have given its fruits, at least in terms of macroeconómicos
balances. 1997 have been the third consecutive year of positive growth of the
rent by inhabitant (the growth of the GIP has become stabilized around annual
4% in the last triennium) after one decade of negative growth. The inflation seems
to be domeñada, after happening of 29.6% in 1995 to 8% in March of 1997. The
State has been able to eliminate the public deficit, and in 1997 it contributed
by second consecutive year to the national saving. In case not outside suficiente,
Algeria can be boasted of of to have obtained in 1996 a surplus of its balance
by current account of 4.200 million dollars, that seem to solve their endemic
external imbalance. Thanks to this good behavior of the balance of payments the
internacionales currency reserves have reached a volume of 8.000 million
dollars (almost for a year of imports), practically the 1995 double that those.
All it has been worth him to Algeria the applause of the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank, of which model has become student.
3.3
social Costs
Thus then,
everything indicates that Algeria is in the footpath of the reestablishment of
the macroeconomic balances and the Algerian regime has done all the possible
one to receive parabienes of international the financial community. It it would
be a reason for satisfacción if not outside because the program of structural
adjustment has exacerbado the main structural deficiencies of the model of
Algerian development to take care of basic the necessities social of its population
and has contributed to spread "a servile" image of the Algerian
Government with the international organisms, factors both that have encouraged
a social explosion that, in certain way, has been canalized through the
islamista guerrilla.
rent by inhabitant,
who in 1986 was of 2.590 dollars, with an average growth of 3.5% in the twenty
previous years, fell to 1.600 dollars in 1995, with an average fall of annual
2.4% in the ten previous years. Altogether, between 1980 and 1993 the PNB by
inhabitant fell to an accumulated annual rate of 0,8%. Although it must partly
to a purely monetary phenomenon as it is the devaluation of dinar, is
significant in a country in which most of basic products they are mattered and,
like consecuencia of the liberalización, the internal prices more and more
reflect the international prices of the merchandise.
elimination of
the subventions to nutritional products (only it is left the one of milk, and
in 1998 the disappearance even of the subventions to medicines, once gratuitous
is predicted) and the successive devaluations of dinar generated a process
inflacionario that, although has been bridled by means of a strict control of
the monetary mass, significantly reduced the power of purchase of the
population.
that it is more significant,
the application of the reforms estructurales has affected to social layers
until now safe from the worse defects of the Algerian economic model, worsening
the problem of unemployment and the social exclusion. The contraction of the
investments has caused a big wave of dismissals in the industry that has
impoverished to a part of the working class, that has been assimilated the
infraurban population without use. In addition, the Program of Structural
Adjustment anticipates the elimination of about 170.000 uses of the public
sector before half-full of 1998, that will also be united to more than two
million unemployed officials who populate the cities.
By another part,
the wage-earning workers of the industry and the Administration who have been able
to conserve their use experimentaron a reduction of their real wage of a 35%
between 1993 and 1996.
In these
circumstances, until the own Department of State of the United States recognize
in a report that "in last instance, the success of the reform policies
will depend on an improvement of the turbulent political situation and
security". The problem is in which this situation is consequence of a
social malaise that the reforms have not made but aggravate and extend to new
layers of the population.
4. Final
perspective and considerations
Without to
reduce importance to the positive impact of the macroeconómicos balances like
previous requirement, any program of social and economic development in Algeria
happens through two conditions. First, obvious, it is to recover social La Paz,
which only can be obtained of lasting form by means of the dialogue between the
two real forces of the country: the Army and the administrative-economic
apparatus, on the one hand, and the islamistas political groups that, according
to the last elections celebradas with certain democratic guarantees, count on
the majority support of the population.
In the economic
slope, the structural constant of the population increase (in the 2010 Algeria
years proyectada of 43 million people will have a population, superior to the
one of Spain) and the own social peace demand to center the efforts in the
generating activities of use, which leads inescapably to a revitalización of agriculture.
This, in addition, can contribute to palliate the chronic deficit of the food
production, that supposes a heavy load for the Algerian trade balance.
But the dista
panorama of being flattering. In 1999, the term of deficiency expires granted
by the international creditors, and will return to be increased the service of
the debt that, like so many other countries, has become a structural
restriction to any process of development. To more long term, although the
natural gas production presents/displays a great dynamism, the proven petroleum
reserves only reach after twenty years, which augurs a possible reduction of
the exporting capacity in more of a third.
Everything it
forces Algeria to look for a new guideline of joint in the world-wide economy (beyond
the hydrocarbon sale), which in its case only can obtain by means of a greater
integration with the economies of the countries of the north and the south of
the Mediterranean. But for it it is necessary the development and generation
excessive of production exportable of an own technological base (in ample
sense, including technical questions as of culture, organización...). Sectors
exist, as the manufactures of leather and skin, the textile industry and own
agricultura, that offers an ample potential of use creation. But to compete in
those sectors forces to resign to a rentista economic culture and to reorient
the investing effort and the economic incentives towards the intensive
activities in manual labor.
By another part,
with all its defects, the policy of industrialization of the Seventies created
an industrial base that is crumbling quickly, but for that reason less nonreal.
To squander definitively would suppose it to throw to lose a tremendous
historical investing effort, reason why it is necessary to recover, on new
bases, whatever of viable had the strategy of original industrialization. To
put aim to process of dissolution of his capacity industrial and to develop
formulas imaginativas to mobilize it in favor of development local and - why
of regional integration with its neighbors of the Maghreb he is not another one
of the immediate challenges that the people in charge of the Algerian policy
confront económica and, not to a lesser extent, the people in charge of the
policy of euromediterránea cooperation of the European Union.
5. paper of the
European Union
It stops to
conclude, turns out pertinent to make some summary considerations on the paper
that has carried out and that can carry out the European Union in the Algerian
context, that by itself it would require of a separated study.
veintiún years
of economic cooperation between passed the European Union and Algeria from the
company/signature in the first bilateral agreement, in 1976, have served to
state that the capacity of the European Mediterranean policy to influence in
Algerian economic dynamics very is limited, given the absolute superiority of
hydrocarbons in this process. In fact, an evaluation report[ 11 ] elaborado in 1989 for the Economic and
Social Council of the EEC frankly described as "dissapointing" the
technological cooperation, of investigación and development and industrialist
with the Mediterranean countries, indicating that the hydrocarbon commerce had
governed at any moment by criteria of strict commercial interest, without these
products got to be the key of a cooperation for the development of the
producing countries like Algeria, or at least of a greater intensity and
diversification of the interchanges between those countries and the Comunidad.
In the case of Algeria, the policy of communitarian cooperation has been
centered in the top priority, somewhat myopic, to support at all costs to the
governing regime, before the fear to that the social instability or the access
to the power of the islamistas put in danger the investments of the European
companies or the transmediterráneo hydrocarbon flow. On the other hand, it is
evident that the unilateral opening of certain markets has not served to
harness a diversificación of the Algerian exports.
In this context
registers the introduction, in 1990 (4º financial Protocol, already within the
framework of the Mediterranean Policy Renewed), of the cooperation in the
matter of economic reforms, destined to complement the credit attendance within
the framework lent of the programs of structural adjustment of the IMF and the
World Bank and that, objetivamete, have contributed to the macroeconomic
cleaning, but also to maintain the financing of the regime without in the last
making no own contribution to the solution of the true accumulated económicos
problems by Algeria 35 years.
In the first
weeks of 1998, the European Union, more and more overwhelmed by the fierceness
of the Algerian conflict, has returned to direct its attention towards the
definition of its strategy in this scope, before the reticent attitude, when
not directly hostile, of the Algerian authorities. The result has been
frustrating: a certain inhibition, materialized in the "elevation"
from the subject to the Nations United, and diffuse references to the necessity
to put in practice mechanisms of "humanitarian aid" that seem to remove
from context the new doctrine of the humanitarian intervention in the last
arisen quinquennium in crisis like the one from Rwanda, Sudan or Yugoslavia.
But Algeria is a completamente different case: neither its population is
itself threatened by a humanitarian catastrophe nor the country lacks
sufficient resources for the development. What lack makes to surpass the
climate of terror and the social disarticulation is to impel the political
vertebración -- mediante the dialogue with the islamista opposition and the
democratization and to please mobilize the rents of petroleum in a strategy of
maintained development that favors to the set of the population.
With everything,
the European Union has a paper that to play.[ 12 ] Actualmente, the cooperation in the
economic plane between Algeria and the European Union happens necessarily
through the conclusion in an Agreement of Euromediterráneo Association (like
already celebrated with Tunicia and Morocco) that makes specific the general
frame of cooperation defined in the Euromediterránea Conference of Barcelona of
1995, whose negociaciones are blocked. Although this agreement is centered
logically in power aspects (Sid Amhed, 1996), would not be of more than it
raised questions key for any strategy of future development of Algeria, as they
are:
• the lightening
of the external debt, whose reduction or reconversion is contemplated in
Renewed the Mediterránea Policy. To reduce of permanent way the service of the
debt is a previous requirement to release the resources necessary to impel any
policy of reforms that goes beyond the mere economic cleaning and
liberalization of the markets, as well as to reorient inversiones public of
the sector of hydrocarbons (or, which is the same, of the currency generation)
towards activities that create job;
• the technical
and financial cooperation in the agricultural sector and the diversificación
of the exportaciones. Although any increase of the Algerian agricultural
exports to the European Union unavoidably has to be modest, the opening of the
communitarian agricultural market to Algerian products is a step necessary to
promote progressive reequilibrio of the comerciales intercambios;
• the promotion
of progresiva horizontal integration with Tunisia and Morocco (reinforced
thanks to the gasoductos already, although the intrarregional commerce
between the magrebíes countries continues being only one small fraction of less
of 5% of its external interchanges), without which the creation of a
euromediterráneo economic space would make no sense and would reproduce schemes
of neocolonial relations económicas.
In all case, two
great alternatives of cooperation between the European Union and Algeria,
hardly complementarias are outlined in the horizon.
By a side, the
concept of codevelopment, more and more sharpened and with an increasing
predicament in France, the local part of a combined management of the flows
from emigrants to Europe (the immigrants would cnvertirían themselves in
authentic agents of development in their countries of origin) and promotion of
iniciativas of development and creation of use of all the social agents (States,
companies, universidades, ONG) to create the conditions so that the potential
immigrants can permanecer in their country or return to him. Although somewhat
voluntarista, among other things because public requires the mobilization of
greater financial flows, it seems more fertile than proyectada creation,
within the framework of the Euromediterránea Association, an area of free
commerce for the year 2010, that is polarizing most of the comunitarios
efforts of cooperation within the framework of Program MEDA. The total
liberalization of the intercambios, that would inspect a somewhat unilateral
character in the case of a country with similar degree of specialization of his
exportaciones in the sector of the hidrocarburos (97%) and little exporting
potential in other branches of the production, would arrive just at the moment
at which foreseeably a flexion of the income by exports of hidrocarburos will
take place and the Algerian population will reach its point of maximum crecimiento.
Since it has been indicated, "the effects of the creation of a zone of
free commerce between the Mediterranean UE and countries would be marginal for
Europe and massive for these countries"[ 13 ]. In any case, one is effects extremely
indeterminados and, by inherent dynamics to the market, hardly reversible,
which forms all the project of creation of the area of free Mediterranean
commerce like a extremadamente dangerous experiment of international social
and economic engineering. It does not seem to be éso what Algeria needs more at
the moment.
Bibliography
BALTA, P.
(1994), Grand Maghreb, Publishing Century XXI, Madrid.
WORLD BANK, World Development Report 1988, 1997, Oxford
University Press, New York.
BÉRAUD, P.
(1995), "industrialisation contre him développement: paradoxe algérien to
him ", Cahiers of l'Orient nº 39/40.
BERZOSA, C.,
BUSTELO, P. and CHURCH, J. of (1996), World-wide economic structure,
Synthesis, Madrid.
BEDRANI, S.
(1993), Algérie: Him secteur agricole ET ses perspectives to l'horizon 2000,
Commission of the European Communities.
ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT (1996), Algeria. Country
procases out 1996-97, London.
ELLYAS, A.
(1997), "Eclaircie économique pur to pouvoir algérien to him", Him
Clean Diplomatique, October.
GARCI'A, L.
(1996), Algeria, year one. Madrid, mimeografiado.
GHILÈS, Francis
(1995), "Spain and the Algerian gas", Foreign policy nº 44,
April-May, pp. 169-176.
GONZALEZ ROMERO,
A. (1992), The economies of the Magreb: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia,
Document of Work nº 9213, Faculty of Economic and Enterprise Sciences,
Complutensian University of Madrid.
GOUMEZIANE, S.
(1996), "To nouveau, mirage to pétrolier to him", It cleans
Diplomatique To Him, Paris, September.
GOYTISOLO, J.
(1994), Algeria in the gale, The PAIS-Aguilar, Madrid.
GOYTISOLO, J.
(1997), "To be able, businesses and blood", THE PAIS, Madrid,
29 of November.
GLUCKSMANN, A.
(1998), "a crime against the human sort", The Country, Madrid,
1 of February.
HUNTINGTON, S.P.
(1997) The shock of civilizations and the reconfiguration of the world order,
Paidós, Barcelona.
INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CORPORATION (1997), Algeria,
Country Profile, Washington.
JOXE, Alain
(1997), "South Repentons-nous l'Algérie ET parlons vrai", It
cleans To Him, Paris, 11 of November.
KHADER, B.
(1995), "Europe and the Mediterranean. Of the paternalism to the
association ", Icaria Antrazyt, Barcelona.
LACOMBA, Joan
(1997), Society and policy in the Magreb, The books of the cataract,
Madrid.
MARTIN-MUÑOZ, G.
(1994), Algeria: the frustrated revolution, Notebooks of the Present
World, History 16, Madrid.
MARTINEZ HAIRDO,
J., and VIDAL VILLA J.M. (coords.) (1995), World-wide economy,
McGrawHill, Madrid.
MEZDOUR, S.
(1995), "Them déséquilibres économiques", Cahiers of l'Orient
nº 39/40.
NAÏR, Samir
(1995), In the name of God, Icaria-Más Wood, Barcelona.
NAÏR, Samir
(1998), "Algeria: why?", Keys of practical reason, nº 80,
Madrid, March.
NOHLEN, D. (1980), Lexicon Dritte Welt,
Signal-Verlag, Baden-Baden (Germany).
The PNUD (1992-1997), Human Development Report, Oxford
University Press, New York.
RIVA, A. of,
(1995), "Algeria, speculations around a possible future",
Foreign policy nº 44, abri-May, pp. 177-183.
SID AMHED,
Abdelkader (1996), "prospectivos Analyses in the Agreement of Association
between Algeria and the European Union", Spanish Commercial Información
nº 759, Madrid, December of 1996-January of 1997.
SPIEGEL, Der
(1998), "Algerien: Mörderische Sippenhaft ", Der Spiegel nº
3/1998. Hamburg.
THIEUX, L.
(1996), "the French Policy towards Algeria: between the islamista fear and
commercial interest
", Papers nº 59/60, October of 1996-March of 1997.
TLEMÇANI, Rachid
(1995), "approche stratégique of violence", Cahiers of l'Orient
nº 39/40.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE (1994), Algeria: 1994
Country Report on Economic Policy and Trade Practices, Bureau of Economic
and Business Affairs, Washington.
VV.AA, (1997), The Middel East and North Africa 1997,
43ª ed., Europe Publications Ltd., London.
[ 1 ] The nationalization of the Algerian oil sector was carried out
in two phases: one first in 1967, that affected to the North American companies
and the Shell, and one second, in February of 1971, of the two French companies
that operated in the country, although in this last case was limited 51% of its
capital.
[ 2 ] Only the plan of investments of Sonatrach anticipates
necessities of 18.000 million dollars in five years to increase the income by
hydrocarbon export until the 13.500 million annual dollars to prices of 1996
(Goumeziane, 1996).
[ 3 ] BP
Statistical Review of World Energy, June of 1996.
[ 4
] rentista mentality of the Algerian authorities when
focusing agriculture is left patent in boutade putting in mouth of
Bumedian: "if we needed tomatos, we will buy them to Morocco
"(mentioned in Goytisolo 1997).
[ 5 ] Thanks to the fundamentalist Islamic guerrilla, these young
people, who in most of the cases are monolingües in Arab and are imprisoned of
the frustration and the boredom, "stop being vague apt ones only for the
shoddy work, contrabando and the small delinquency in gang to become, thanks
to the prédicas of the islamistas, in the combatants of the new one jihad
" (Goytisolo 1990, p. 27).
[ 6 ] "the old grain dealer of wheat of the Romans in time of
Tito Livio was sacrificed. There where the old civilization of the olive tree
reigned, it is stewed today with oil concerned of colza or sunflower
"(Zayka Daud, mentioned in Goytisolo, 1994, p. 13)
[ 7 ] In the moment for writing this work (January of 1998), the
international prices of the crude one return to locate themselves below the 14
dollars, a level that ten years ago triggered the Algerian crisis.
[ 8 ]
Goumeziane (1996) number in 6.000 million annual dollars in next the five years
the increase of the imports necessary to satisfy the necessities with the
population.
[ 9 ] Goytisolo (1994) has made see "one first and very serious
signal of alarm" on the disarticulation of the Algerian economy:
"from half-full of the sixty, while the Moroccan and Tunisian workers sent
their savings to Tunicia and Morocco for construirse a house or to open a
commerce, Algerians they invested its money in France and they preferred to
bring its family there. Its lack of confidence in the future foretold what later
it happened."
[ 10 ] Declaration of the Executive Directory of the IMF of 27 of
June of 1997, within the framework of the consultations anticipated in Article
IV.
[ 11 ] M. Amato, The Mediterranean policy of the European
Community.
[ 12 ] Although it has affirmed that "no outer pressure will be
able to modify the sociological process in course" (Naïr, 1998), does not
prevent that the present policy towards Algeria, obsessed to guarantee the
security of the strategic supplyings of petroleum and gas and the interests of
the companies of the sector that have invested in the country cannot delay it,
nor that one cooperation more active within the framework of the
Mediterranean Policy it cannot praise/pour off it in one or another direction.
[ 13 ] Gérard Kebabdjian, mentioned in Khader (1995).
|
Note: This is a computer
translation of the original webpage. It is provided for general information
only and should not be regarded as complete nor accurate. |