To the most people who believe in the vision of rivalry and dreamt of regional power within their spheres of influence, the best idea of being a regional hegemon is creating a region union over a neighboring country. Meanwhile, AMU, in general, can bring North African countries altogether as one unified Arab regional power.
Almost 30 years from its creation of AMU, the Arab Maghreb Union was born in 1989 in Marrakech, Its creation was one of the most important integrations Arab regional Union. Its members are aimed to work together in order to enhance their common cooperation in term of security, social, economic and geopolitical. Yet, this idea of building this regional integration union at the beginning is to enforce regional cooperation and strengthen neighboring relations, At the same time; the geopolitical issues among neighboring countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, and more importantly Western Sahara issue lead to different perspectives and interpretations of the continuation of AMU which undermine some AMU’s member foreign policy.
So far the issue of Western Sahara also played a very crucial issue in making AMU shakable and unsustainable. Therefore, if Algeria and Morocco would stand together to make their issues away of AMU then, the Arab regional union would dawn again.
Due to this, the significant failure of the Arab Maghreb Union is surely based on Morocco -Algeria conflictual relations. The Kingdom of Morocco pushed and tired harder several time to dissolve and evaporate their traditional dispute through sending dozens of diplomatic invitations to settled down for a real dialogue in order to overcome their issues concerning Western Sahara and territorial borders.
First of all, let’s make a short briefing about this regional conflict in the Arab Maghreb Union. this AMU was built weak and will die weak and feeble. After several calls from Morocco to Algeria, the Algerian government rejected Moroccan initiative letters to dissolve issues but Algeria made it clear for not collaborating or even though willing to respond, that means Algeria merely responsible for not cooperating to resolve regional issues as one of AMU members as well its one of the reasons through failure of Maghreb Union. Secondly, other AMU members felt that Algeria went far to help in sustaining AMU work effectively as it was built for, because most of the five Maghreb members are going to switch their ways to solve their issue by its own or seek for other African countries to cooperate with for example: currently Morocco start cooperating and connecting deeply with other African countries such as Ecowas regional group. In addition, Morocco, along with Tunisia and Mauritania which are seeking to follow Moroccan vision into Africa in order to diversify their national interests. However, Libya it’s an isolated case in AMU member because Libya currently live a very chaotic civil war and it’s hard to be seen more stable or peaceful in the upcoming years so far. Therefore, Algeria would remain itself isolated and unique.
The lack of regional cooperation and ineffective integration among non-Maghreb countries would cost less economic collaboration. Some recent statistics show the Maghreb region loses approximately 500 billion US dollars every year as a result of mismanagement of trade restrictions and legislative. The absence of commerce and trade marketing supplementary, the reflecting similarities in the frames of trade marketing and low export variety have also had great negative collisions on intra-Maghreb trade marketing. For instance, the supplementary of Libyan and Algerian exports with the imports from other Maghreb states is still very down. The kingdom of Morocco and Tunisia act actively much better as they are more advanced in the field of exportation than their neighbors which depend on products related on mineral and hydrocarbon.
As noted. despite economic bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Morocco and Tunisia stays low potential, the scope of their under trading progress has decreased. The Agadir free trade regional agreement has improved ease up trade and opened opportunities for trading investment even though the benefits from this expansion still low. Comparing with the rest of the Maghreb region, this slow improvement in trademarking and commerce moves the Moroccan and Tunisian proficiency experience in profitable level. So far the trademarking rolls between Libya, Mauritania, and Algeria are inconsiderable. Their substantial dependence on raw material, natural resources, and hesitation to involve in intra industry trade make it more complicated to increase trade marketing share among them even if they are willing to.
In term of trade marketing, Libya Mauritania and Algeria show the least their moves into regional commerce. Algeria’s trading with the rest of AMU members stays very low and weak, with its imports and exports reaching only 25 percent and 12 percent of their potential. In contrast, the Kingdom of Morocco has increased its export and import potential to all Maghreb states, except Algeria where Morocco ‘s exports have extended approximately 4 percent of their potential in the year 2015. additionally, Algeria’s exports to the Kingdom of Morocco have not reached 10 percent of their potential. Basically, the kingdom of Morocco is not willing to rely on Algerian extensive hydrocarbon products in which the kingdom needs to turn its pure phosphate into fertilizers.
This is quite superficial regarding the AMU failure and Western Sahara dispute forms the major impediment to the creation of AMU. It highlights the lack of sufficient cooperation between Morocco and Algeria since the so-called “Sand War” to put an end to their intricate relations. Western Sahara dispute basically pushes both states into regional rivalry and also represented a good political opportunity for Algeria and Morocco to set up their regional and superintendence supremacy.
Yes, as the King of Morocco pointed out in his last annual speech in African Union Summit: the failure of AMU is a tremendous failure of entire Arab Maghreb countries, also he noted ” we are very disappointed to see that the Maghreb Arab Union is the least integrated region in the African continent, if not in the entire world.” Hespress Newsmedia. If we do not immediately act, by following the example of neighboring African sub-regions, the Maghreb Union will destroy in its chronic insufficiency to reach up to the spirits of its creation.
The rise of Islamist groups in the Maghreb region made Morocco and Algeria rethink about their political strategy and reshape their foreign policy errors. Back to Algeria’s civil war in (1992-3) which dive Algerian society into a huge disaster, pushed it away from the Western Sahara conflict. In Morocco, the Islamic political Justice and development party (PDJ) rising success because of its great social interaction in Moroccan society.
Literally, the rise of Islamic groups, therefore, highlights the emergence both of plural political speech and awareness of states and arrival of violence, in the form of non- state actor or extremist acts, laid by the failure of political communities.
According to this, the western Sahara issue can’t be taken as the main interpretation of the failure of the regional integration strategy project in North Africa. Indeed, it declares the inefficiency of the countries in the region to set up a regular structure in sense of accumulating shared interests and collective profits.
In the end, Algeria’s deficiency holds serious security indications and suggestions for EU and the US. if it is incapable in doing many necessary reforms, it may give opportunities for extremists groups and non state actors to undermine the country, it’s hydrocarbon supplies to the Mediterranean countries, and safety of foreign investment in the region. Even though this might be a big loss at the current time. In fact, Algeria’s lack of political reforms has an influence on the other members of AMU in their efficiency, capacity, and productivity to promote mutual economic strategies. Thus, the International observers noticed by a terrorist threat and energy insecurity increasing Arab regional integration in North Africa, as its pushing the AMU’s foreign partners to cooperate and work hard through that case.
The real challenges to the AMU in the upcoming decades, the Kingdom of Morocco will sustain and upgrade its existence in the regional organization until finding its new partners across the AMU and develop its measured political and economic capacity out of unified Maghreb Union.
