Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya have launched a new consultation framework. Their leaders met on Monday, April 22 during a summit in Tunis, in the absence of Morocco and Mauritania.
Algeria affirmed and reiterated that this “ new formula ” is not intended to replace the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), in lethargy for several years, and even “ in a coma ”, to use the expression of the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Attaf.
The head of Algerian diplomacy, as well as the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, also assured in turn that the initiative is not intended against anyone and that the doors remain open to all. The allusion is obviously to Morocco, with which Algeria broke diplomatic relations in August 2021, and after some observers began to characterize the new framework as “ Maghreb without Morocco ”.
Given the developments in the situation in the region over the last 30 years and the orientations fully assumed by Morocco, it is rather judicious to question whether it still has a serious interest in the construction of the Maghreb, in other words, he did not de facto exclude himself from the common projects of his neighbors.
Speaking of projects, several concrete ones were discussed or launched on the occasion of the Tunis Summit, with the establishment of working groups on issues as sensitive as the movement of people and goods, the development of border areas, water from the Albian aquifer, energy, food security, electrical interconnection and the fight against illegal migration and organized crime.
Something new and promising was born in Tunis between Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. In addition to the cooperation announced in the areas mentioned and others, the three countries are committed to speaking with one voice and weighing together, as a regional bloc, in the main international political issues.
All this without Morocco which seems to have made its choices a long time ago. “ Morocco seems to look at the whole world, except its neighbors,” writes the French newspaper Les Échos, taking into account the kingdom’s foreign policy in recent decades.
If, with Algeria, relations have deteriorated, from the closure of the common border in 1994 until the outright severance of diplomatic relations in August 2021, with other Maghrebi neighbors, Rabat does not maintain excellent relations either, with episodic crises sometimes with Tunis as during the reception of the Sahrawi president by Kaïs Saïed in September 2022, sometimes with Mauritania, several nationals of which have been killed in recent years by the Moroccan army.
Morocco has always turned its back on its neighbors in the Maghreb
Moreover, Morocco’s priority has always been elsewhere than in the Maghreb. Precisely in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Madrid, and Tel Aviv.
In 2004, as the AMU was withering away, the kingdom signed a free trade agreement with the United States, followed by obtaining ” advanced status ” in its association agreement with the United States in 2008. European Union. In 2022, he has taken care of his relations with Spain and he is in the process of doing the same with France.
Above all, in 2020 he took the step of normalization with Israel with whom he accelerated military cooperation to try to establish the fait accompli in Western Sahara and supposedly protect itself against its Algerian neighbor, according to Moroccan media.
In addition to the West, Morocco has also always prioritized its good understanding with the Gulf Monarchies.
More recently, the kingdom turned towards the South by promising to the landlocked countries of the Sahel (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad) a strategic partnership project including utopian access to the Atlantic via Mauritania and Western Sahara. busy.
“ Morocco has the gift of proposing projects that make everyone laugh. This was the case for its EU accession project, the tunnel under the Mediterranean, the Saharan road,” mocks an Algerian official.
To make itself indispensable to Europe, it has also undertaken to compete with Algeria in the delivery of gas to the old continent by considering also building a gas pipeline connecting it to Nigeria.
Rabat’s interest in Africa is not new. It has multiplied its levers for several years with the aim of garnering support within the African Union for its business of colonizing Western Sahara.
The kingdom’s disinterest in the Maghreb is obvious. Since 2020, he has completely burned his ships regarding a possible joint project with his neighbors.
“ By maintaining very good relations with Israel ”, Morocco “ disqualifies itself from any intra-Maghrebi discussion ”, estimates Hasni Abidi, director of the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World, quoted by Les Échos.
