Algeria's relationship with the European Community (EC) and its successor the European Union (EU) has traditionally been of a tumultuous nature. Decision-makers in Algiers and Brussels have struggled to find an optimal policy and institutional configuration that would both reflect and harness the dyad's interests and potential. For almost all the wrong reasons, EU-Algerian relations have been dubbed sui generis. From the outset of European integration in 1957, Algeria has by default found it difficult to dovetail with the moulds of the EC/EU's foreign policies in the Mediterranean. As a result, it has carried the reputation in Europe of being the most awkward partner in North Africa. However, from Algiers' vantage point, the EU's share of the blame in this situation of sub-optimality lies in its persistent failure to attain a fair appreciation of Algeria's interests and specificities. The opportunity cost of this state of affairs has been significant in terms of reforms, economic development and regional integration. In times of both stability and turmoil, the EU has been unable to accompany Algeria's chequered process of political reform and help dissipate the stultifying perceptual hangovers from the colonial period that have tended to pervade attitudes on both sides of the Mediterranean. Furthermore, Algeria has consistently made too timid an effort to avail itself of the institutional and market-integration opportunities offered by the EU and solidly anchor its stalling economic diversification programme to European policy frameworks. Besides penalising bilateral ties between the EU and Algeria, these repeated hiccups have also passively militated against the broader projects of (sub-)regional integration in the Maghreb and Mediterranean writ large. Amid these failures, energy has conspicuously been the only area in which EU-Algerian relations have known continued stability and interdependence. Although driven almost exclusively by market forces, the net complementarity characterising EU-Algerian relations in the energy sector has encouraged the development of a relevant bilateral cooperation of sorts. Nevertheless, relative to
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