The Cost of “Non-Maghreb”
Unpacking the Political
and Economic Costs of Disunion and Divisions

edited by Aldo Liga

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The Cost of “Non-Maghreb”. Unpacking the Political and Economic Costs of Disunion and Divisions

Edited by Aldo Liga

First edition: December 2023

Cover image by Francesco Fadani

Print ISBN 9791256000180

ePub ISBN 9791256000197

Pdf ISBN 9791256000203

DOI 10.14672/56000180

ISPI. Via Clerici, 5

20121, Milan

www.ispionline.it

Catalogue and reprints information: www.ledizioni.it

Table of Contents

Introduction
Paolo Magri

1. The Cost of a Disunited Maghreb Keeps Rising
Francis Ghilès

2. The Limits of Economic Integration in the Maghreb
Intissar Fakir, Haneen Zeglam

3. The Western Sahara Conflict as the Chicken and Egg of the “Non-Maghreb”
I. Fernández-Molina, M. Hernando De Larramendi, R. Ojeda-García

4. How the “Failure of Maghreb” Reverberates in Libya
Aldo Liga

5. The “Non-Maghreb” and Transnational Clandestine Flows from the Sahel Region
Matt Herbert

6. A Divided Maghreb: Political Implications for Europe
Eduard Soler i Lecha

About the Authors

Introduction

These days, when we look at the Middle East and North Africa region, our eyes are inevitably drawn to the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is the first time in almost a decade that this happens. During this period, European policy makers have been distracted by other crises: the rise in irregular migration flows from African countries since 2013, the rise and fall of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq, the global pandemic, and of course Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Even regional actors had an interest in downplaying the risks of a resurgence of hostilities, as they tried to normalize their relations with Israel, looking for a newfound, precarious geopolitical stability.

However, the Israel-Hamas conflict that started on 7 October now risks having the opposite effect: to avert our attention from other areas in the MENA region that instead demand the attention of experts and policy makers. The Maghreb is a region rich in crises and opportunities, full of contradictions. The longstanding Algeria-Morocco dispute has led to the border being closed for close to thirty years straight, and a severance of gas supplies in 2021. In Libya, the civil war and the de facto division of the country in two rival administrations is a reality we need to grapple with. Tunisia, meanwhile, is going through an economic and political crisis that has helped, in its own terms, to spur irregular migration flows along the Central Mediterranean that are the highest we are seeing since 2016.

Within this context, the Maghreb region also holds a huge untapped economic potential. Of course, political stabilization could boost economic activity and trade, bringing more people out of poverty. But there is more to that. Individual countries of the Maghreb have achieved substantial progress on trade but, as a region, they remain the least integrated in the world. The share of intraregional trade is less than 5% of Maghreb countries’ total trade, substantially lower than in all other regional trading blocs worldwide. According to a study by the International Monetary Fund, greater integration among Maghreb countries would create a market of almost 100 million people, with an average income of about US$4,000 per capita in nominal terms and about US$12,000 in purchasing-power-parity terms. This would help attract foreign direct investment and bring down many costs that currently hinder the movement of labor, capital, and goods. In turn, this could contribute to raising growth by 1% point on average in the long term.

This is what the region is sorely lacking today: it is the cost of “non-Maghreb”. This Report aims to reflect on the region’s untapped potential, on its current political and economic challenges, and what the future might hold for individual countries and the Maghreb as a divided, fractious but potentially coherent whole.

Opening the volume, Francis Ghilès traces the genesis of the idea of the cost of “non-Maghreb” and expounds the attempts to measure the impact on the region of lack of integration, trade restrictions, legislative barriers, and political distrust, both in terms of missed economic opportunities and loss in growth. The chapter analyses the origin of regional divisions and disunion (which can also be traced to the shackles of the colonial experience, the different nature of the regimes in place, and the political elites’ resistance to reforms), the hopes of a “united” Maghreb over the decades and the failure of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). Focusing on the potential importance of investments in building trust among Maghreb countries, the author catalogues a long list of missed opportunities for cooperation and the development of complementarities in the energy, fertiliser, agrobusiness, banking, and transport sectors, and shows the success of a few private enterprises, which could contribute to making a different future for the whole region.

Intissar Fakir and Haneen Zeglam offer a different view focusing on the limits of economic integration in the Maghreb and the general lack of political will among Maghreb governments in tackling the existing challenges to greater integration. In the second chapter of the volume, the authors argue that instead of prioritising greater regional economic integration, Maghreb governments are committed to strengthening existing bilateral trade relationships with European partners and seeking out partnerships in new regions with trade potential. The authors look beyond the established wisdom that focuses on geopolitics, and cut through the broad range of practical obstacles from the lack of harmonised regulations, poor infrastructure connectivity, different state-business relations and divergent political economies, as well as the growing role of bilateral trade partnerships outside the region. All, together with geopolitics, are factors that have diminished the opportunities to build economic complementarities. In conclusion, they highlight the extent to which the largely externally-driven dream of an integrated Maghreb has progressively faded over the last few decades and highlight existing alternatives.

In the third chapter, Irene Fernández-Molina, Miguel Hernando de Larramendi and Raquel Ojeda-García identify in the Moroccan-Algerian dispute over the Western Sahara the “chicken and egg” of the “non-Maghreb”. The chapter describes the historical evolution of the conflict since late 70s till the moment in which it becomes the “lens through which Morocco looks at its international environment... and measures the sincerity of friendships and the efficiency of partnerships”. The Western Sahara issue has crystallised geopolitical rivalry between Algeria and Morocco in the Maghreb, and it is both a consequence and a cause of the clash of both countries’ post-colonial political identities and interests. Ample space is devoted to the Moroccan and Algerian interests at stakes, the regional spillover to Tunisia and Mauritania, and the repercussions on the Maghreb’s relations with the European Union (EU) and EU Member States.

After the analysis of the Western Sahara issue, the report focuses on the long-standing political crisis in Libya and how it reverberates in the Maghreb region. Aldo Liga argues that since the fall of the Gaddafi regime the crisis has contributed to shape the internal and foreign policies of Maghreb states, their regional stance and ambitions. After the description of the way in which Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have been affected by the Libyan crisis and how they have reacted to it, the chapter concludes that although the problems emanating from the Libyan chaos have posed common threats to the whole region, the reality of the “non-Maghreb” has played a role in the definition of the Maghreb responses to the crisis, preventing cooperative approaches and coordinated efforts. Competition has also resulted in the fostering of alternative frameworks of dialogue.

The fifth chapter analyses the impact of regional competition and lack of coordination on the way in which Maghreb countries are dealing with transnational flows in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands. After having assessed clandestine flows of goods and people, illicit drugs, weapons, and the spread of Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs), Matt Herbert underlines the persistence of poor to non-existent engagement and coordination, broader bilateral disagreements and distrust between Maghreb states on addressing transnational flows. The chapter eventually suggests new approaches and good practices to improve operational cross-border engagement to tackle clandestine flows both at the bilateral and multilateral level.

In the last chapter, Eduard Soler i Lecha examines the political implications of a disunited Maghreb for the EU, analysing the reverberation of divisions and tensions within the Maghreb in the region. Starting from the economic and political cost of regional crisis, such as rivalries between Algeria and Morocco on the Western Sahara issue, the Libyan conflict, and destabilisation in the Sahel, the chapter analyses the repercussion on the EU, but also how some external actors or transnational criminal groups are benefiting from the current paralyses, thriving in an environment of disunity and fragmentation. The chapter also analyses the “tragic” impact of internal divisions among EU member states that have impeded cohesive efforts to foster greater cooperation across the Mediterranean, perpetuating a disheartening record of missed opportunities for stability and mutual prosperity and underlines the need of initiating and incentivising a new dynamic of cooperation. Finally, the chapter also mentions the importance of Maghrebi diasporas in the EU and their potential to play a transformative role in pushing for cooperation within the Maghreb and between the Maghreb and Europe, bridging understanding, dialogue, and collaboration.

Paolo Magri

ISPI Executive Vice President

1. The Cost of a Disunited Maghreb Keeps Rising

Francis Ghilès

“There will be no European bloc if it does not turn the Mediterranean into an internal sea” – famous last words you might say but the former French Minister of Finance Dominique Strauss Kahn raised an important point when he uttered them in 1999.1 He was not alone in thinking that, after Europe had opened to the East in 1991, it must open up to the South. His conviction was shared by no less a figure than Chancellor Helmut Kohl, to whom the original idea of what became known as the Barcelona Process can be traced. Strauss Kahn’s conviction on the central role of the mare nostrum in Europe’s future had been shared, a decade earlier by the Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and his Foreign Minister, Gianni de Michelis, who crafted a foreign policy which was not afraid to criticise American and, even more, French foreign policy in the region.

But for the European Union (EU), the idea of dealing with its “internal sea” requires dialogue with the Maghreb, which means talking with a region dominated by disunity, divisions, lack of political and economic cooperation, physical border walls, infrastructural bottlenecks, logistical constraints and diplomatic distrust. In one word, it involves dealing with the “non-Maghreb”, a concept and a reality that has a cost for both Maghrebi countries and the EU.

Twenty years ago, some thought was given to how to encourage more open frontiers in North Africa. The idea of the cost of “non-Maghreb” was inspired by the Cecchini report commissioned by the European Community2 and written between 1983 and 1988. This report helped usher in the single European market, arguably the boldest step Europe made to consolidate its integration and boost economic activity since the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

Commissioned in 1983 by the EU director of international markets, Piero Cecchini, the report suggested that completing the Single Market would add economic gains ranging from € 650 billion to €1.1 trillion to the EU’s GDP, in other words it would gain between 5.0% and 8.5% of growth every year. The World Bank was engaged in a similar exercise on North Africa while Strauss Kahn, who had moved to Washington to become Director General of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), suggested that North African economies might gain 5 percentage points if barriers to trade and investment were broken down. Another World Bank study suggested that per-capita GDP in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia would have nearly doubled between 2005 and 2015 if meaningful regional integration had taken place.3 A more recent IMF study4 suggests that integration in the Maghreb would create a regional market of almost 100 million people with an average income of about US$4,000 per capita in nominal terms and about US$12,000 in purchasing-power-parity terms. This would increase opportunities to leverage economies of scale, attract foreign direct investment, reduce the costs of trade, capital and labour movement, and make the region more resilient to economic shocks and volatility. The impact of improved integration in terms of higher growth in the region is now estimated at an average of 1% in each Maghreb country.

The concept of “non-Maghreb” was first launched almost 20 years ago and was the subject of important seminars in Madrid and Washington.5 In 2006 a major seminar organised at the request of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos, brought together entrepreneurs of the public and private sector, economists, diplomats and EU officials. The focus was on what measures were needed to accelerate growth, create jobs and open up frontiers. The debates were so lively that the Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), the Moroccan state-owned phosphate manufacturer and fertiliser producer, offered to finance a similar exercise through the Peterson Institute in Washington the following year.

Dreams of North African Unity Remain Unfulfilled

The dream of North African unity can be traced back to the 1950s when the three former French territories (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) fought for their independence from France. The most bitter fight by far was the Algerian war of independence (1954-62), during which the Algerian freedom fighters benefited from the support of their two neighbours who, by 1956, had achieved independence. Units of the Algerian military (ALN) were based in eastern Morocco and western Tunisia and the infighting between different Algerian nationalist factions sometimes spilled over the frontier, into the streets of Tunis. At independence on 4 July 1962, the ALN entered Algeria and imposed military rule, thus silencing the provisional government set up by the Front de Liberation National and civil society.

After 1962, Algeria mapped out a more radical economic and foreign policy path, while Morocco and Tunisia stayed close to the West. Algeria supported the Palestinians as the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) fought the Israelis, while Morocco did all it could to encourage dialogue. The dispute over the international status of the Spanish Western Sahara colony led to a serious crisis in relations between Algeria and Morocco, which continues to this day. But for a decade after 1980, a rapprochement between Algeria and Morocco gave rise to hopes of a “united” Maghreb, at least of open frontiers and a free flow of goods, investment and people. These improved relations gave rise to the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), which included Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, but the civil war that engulfed Algeria from 1992 to 1998 derailed the AMU, which has been an empty shell ever since.

North African countries have been gripped for two generations by any number of fears, amplified by the lack of unity and political dividends. Morocco argues that it cannot possibly allow its gas supplies to depend on its eastern neighbour, which would, in terms of Algeria’s resources, proximity and competitive prices, be the obvious supplier. Algeria for its part was fearful that its two neighbours were only interested in expanding their export markets and acting as predators on its oil and gas wealth, but such fears included a good measure of paranoia, as its leaders refused to reform what remains a state-controlled economy. Liberalising a command economy would have brought the economies of the three countries closer. Tunisia and Algeria have been cooperating more closely since the fall of Ben Ali in 2011, the latter offering aid where fighting terrorism and financial support are concerned. The closure of the Algeria to Maghreb-Europe pipeline on 1 November 2021 was an accident waiting to happen. Without trust, any attempt to give North Africa a common voice in the broader region is doomed to fail.

The more optimistic days of the mid-1980s, which saw President Chadli Bendjedid (1979-92) and King Hassan II (1961-99) agree to build a pipeline to carry Algerian gas to Spain, thereby enhancing trust between two nations that held conflicting views on the international status of the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, have long since gone. Lack of support at the United Nations scuppered two plans to settle the dispute. When stepping down from his mission as Special UN Envoy to Western Sahara, the former United States Secretary of State, James Baker II, acknowledged that “the UN can only be as effective as its member states … the member states don’t want to solve this and they are not willing to use political chips to solve it, so it is not going to be solved”. Time has stood still since that statement was made in 2004. On the other side of North Africa, the erstwhile leader of Libya was a spoiler not a builder of alliances. Since he has gone, chaos has engulfed Libya, opening the floodgates of illegal immigration to Europe and fuelling growing disorder in the Sahel.

The Nature of North African States Blocks Progress

North African regimes are neo-patrimonial. As Gilbert Achcar points out

the neo-liberal orientation of economic policy is predicated on the centrality of the private sector as the driving engine of development … There is hardly any region of the world where capitalism is more remote from its ideal type than the Arab-speaking region, where crony capitalism … prevails under conditions of long-term unpredictability, determining a take-the-money-and-run attitude among owners of capital.6

The IMF and World Bank, followed by the EU, have pushed the Washington Consensus to recommend a drastic reduction in public employment, conditioning their loans to the implementation of these reforms and to the opening of the private sector. The three North African countries are run by elites, whose main purpose is to ensure that they stay in power (the Moroccan makhzen, the Algerian army and a tight network of families in Tunisia), although it is fair to say that the Moroccan elites have done a much better job of developing the economy than their two immediate eastern neighbours. Even if the frontiers of North Africa were opened and trade and private investment flowed freely, the result would not be spectacular today in the absence of a deep reform of the state. But moving away from neo-patrimonialism would be revolutionary.

The perception many North Africans have of their neighbours is shaped by disinformation and a war of words, which crowds out any rational analysis of reality. Tunisia is too small and mired in crisis to have any regional influence. Algeria’s military have their own interests at heart, not those of their people, while Morocco’s foreign policy is focused on demonstrating that the Western Sahara has historically been Moroccan. The narcissism of minor differences is at work in a region whose anthropological bedrock is Berber and ways of governance very similar.

A further factor, often overlooked and misunderstood, is the incapacity of many North African elites to throw off the psychological shackles of the colonial experience. The elites in this region are far more subservient, intellectually, to Paris than their Turkish peers are to Berlin or London. In “Why Nations Fail”,7 the authors explain how many leaders of newly independent African states simply stepped into the shoes of their colonial predecessors and implemented the same “non-inclusive” economic policies. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has pursued a different course, which explains why its elites have successfully built up an industrial base that Arab countries, notably in North Africa, can only dream of. Turkey’s elites can think on their feet and their political leaders have a vision of the country’s place in the world, whether we in Europe like that vision or not. The same cannot be said of North Africa’s elites.

A younger generation of educated North Africans are more lucid and, because of globalisation and their better understanding of the world beyond their region, beyond France and beyond Europe, have a more independent view of their country’s relations with the former coloniser. They are critical of their elders and of the former coloniser. Yet more and more of this generation are voting with their feet and moving abroad. For many older North Africans, it is shocking to see how many of their children succeed in building careers and companies in North America, Europe and the Gulf, to where they escape the mother-country that denies them the tools to build a better future. The millions of unemployed left behind are a time-bomb waiting to go off. Could they be the agents of revolutionary change? The future will tell.

What Maghreb Foreign Policy for the European Union?

Since 1991, the EU has not had a foreign policy worthy of its economic weight and position on the map. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of its elites seemed to share in the delusion that democracy and capitalism had triumphed, forever. Its leaders failed to understand that the imperial challenge it faced was made up of two, distinct and dissimilar parts. First, it had to keep up a two-way relationship with the more powerful United States, taking care that it did not simply provide resources for its operations and step in afterwards to handle the consequences, without having any say in the fundamental political and-military decisions. In other words, the EU had to resist political marginalisation. On the other hand, the EU had to concern itself with its unstable periphery in the East and Southeast to prevent collapse and being drawn into interventions that would overtax its system, what Herfried Munckler aptly summed up as “the paradoxical danger (it) could suffer imperial overstretch without actually being an empire”.8

Divisions among North African states suited the EU for a long time. The realisation of the importance of North Africa for the stability of Southern Europe has been a long time in coming. Europe is surprised by the reaction of the Global South to the war in Ukraine – the Global South does not buy the story of the West. Europe would be equally surprised if it realised what many members of the ruling elites or middle classes think of its policies towards them, and the broader Middle East. That view could be summed up as “condescension”.9

Turkey’s long-drawn-out application to join the EU demonstrated, to many in North Africa, that Europe focused on its constitutional, political and cultural identities to the detriment of the mounting problems on its periphery. The suction effect of disorder on the periphery was not taken seriously by European leaders despite the Balkans wars of the 1990s, despite the growing crisis in Palestine and the UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report,10 which pointed to the risks lying in wait in a vast arc of crisis stretching from Turkey to Morocco. Few in the West have heeded the UNDP and Strauss Kahn’s warnings. This helps to explain why the EU has misread many MENA countries – most obviously Tunisia and Libya.

As the Arab revolts got under way, few EU specialists of the Mediterranean owned up to their misreading of the stability of Arab lands, which a group of researchers called “the 11th of September in reverse”.11 Europe, in particular, has a vital interest in the stability of North Africa, but the key role that two of its leading member states played in Libya in 2011 suggests they had not learned the lessons of the US invasion of Iraq. The French and British top military brass understood the consequences of the collapse of Libya – it would open the immigration flood gates of the EU and destabilise the Sahel region of Africa. Their political masters refused to listen.

This absence of strategic thinking did not encourage North African states to bury their differences. France never shared Germany’s conviction that it could boost its own economic development by opening up to its southern hinterland. Germany made parts of Eastern Europe a “velangerte Werkbank” (a workshop extended to the East). An interesting example comes from the chemical industry. The Executive Director of the OCP, Amar Drissi, pointed out a “chemical Maghreb could be translated into different feasible schemes”.12 By the 2000s speciality chemicals (such as vitamins, colouring agents, industrial dyes, etc.) had left continental Europe for China and other parts of the world on a massive scale. In the early years of the century, the Gulf States built a powerful chemicals industry – the value levers being a major shift in demand, supply, cost-competitiveness and attractive long-term margins. Despite their important reserves of natural gas and phosphates, and the huge expansion in demand for fertilisers, notably in Africa, the EU never gave a thought to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia as possible workshops to the South. France and other European countries were happy to delocalise massively to China but never entertained the idea that greater investment and transfer of technology to southern-rim Mediterranean countries could create millions of skilled jobs, increase rates of economic growth and employment, and reduce immigration to the North. As the Barcelona Process launched in 1995 faltered in the early years of the XXI century, the EU failed to offer North Africa a bold new partnership.13 A failure of the imagination was compounded in 2011 by the growing militarisation of France’s Africa policy – Nicolas Sarkozy’s enthusiasm to intervene in Libya was symbolic of a shift that the former French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin, sees as the root cause of France’s present rout in Africa.14

In an Ideal World Building Trust Could Take the Form of Investment

Ten years after its launch in 2005, it became clear that the Barcelona Process, which emphasised free trade rather than development, had reached its limits; that it lacked the critical mass of investment needed for a serious economic take-off; and that the cumbersome bureaucratic fund allocation and disbursement mechanisms slowed down the process. The political distrust between the countries of the region drastically limits the potential for investments and the development of economic synergies in the Maghreb. The energy and fertiliser sector, agrobusiness, banking and transport offer the most striking examples of the cost of “non-Maghreb”.

Energy and fertilisers

The abundance of Algerian gas – an ideal feedstock for many industries from plastics to fertilisers – offered the two neighbouring countries a cheap and reliable source of energy. This was particularly true of Morocco, which has some of the largest reserves of phosphate rock in the world. OCP needs sulphur, which can be extracted from gas, to produce fertilisers. As food security was a recurring theme, what better way to help develop farming in North and sub-Saharan Africa than to speed up the production of phosphate-based fertilisers? African countries use very little fertiliser, their populations are increasing fast and OCP was beginning to modernise. In the last 15 years it has transformed from being a sleeping beauty to a nimble international player. It has done so with multiple international partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Moroccan state leaves it free to run its own affairs, but it has to present an annual “state of the nation” to a board which includes key institutions in Morocco.

Unfortunately, the Algerian state oil and gas company, a giant employing 100,000, was run by a very corrupt leadership from 1999 to 2011. The following years saw endless changes in senior management, the spread of corruption and politicisation of the top management and the Ministry of Energy. The result is a weaker company, little foreign investment in new gas fields and bad management of its foreign portfolio.

Despite the war in Ukraine, which has offered new opportunities for Sonatrach to export gas – and maybe hydrogen in the future – the sector’s performance is nothing to boast about. The proud company of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s is history. The country’s capacity to increase gas exports has been cut by the increasing share of production going to the domestic market, where the price of a kilowatt/hour is one of the lowest in the world. Unlike Morocco, Algeria has been slow to promote solar energy, promoting instead the development of shale, which is highly problematic.

In the 1980s, Tunisia’s Groupe Chimique Maghrebin was a pioneer in developing new fertilisers and joint ventures with foreign partners, but gave up these bold efforts in the 1990s, as it became smothered by state bureaucracy and the country’s leader President Ben Ali, who lacked any vision of the future. The state has presided over a halving of Tunisia’s production of rock and fertilisers since 2011.15 This sorry fate is the result of the incapacity of Tunisian leaders to think strategically, which has led to the loss of many foreign investors in the field of energy. Until strong, coherent government is restored in Tunis, there is little to hope for. The one redeeming feature here is that the Enrico Mattei pipeline, which carries Algerian gas to Italy via Tunisia, has functioned well. The throughput of gas has increased following the war in Ukraine, and in the future, hydrogen could flow through the pipeline, subject to appropriate retrofitting. Thanks to new interconnectors, the pipeline could also become a conduit for electricity produced from solar power in Tunisia.

Agrobusiness

Morocco is a major producer of food and processed food, although it has to import wheat, especially in years of drought. Like Tunisia, it boasts some highly regarded food processing companies. Algeria is far more dependent on imports of wheat and a broader range of foodstuffs than its neighbours. Like Tunisia, it produces ad exports high-quality dates. Tunisia is a major exporter of high-quality olive oil. There is a pressing need to invest in more modern farming methods, especially at a time of growing water stress. This would also offer better income to farmers and reduce the pace of migration to the cities. Olive groves offer an excellent way to avoid land erosion in dry regions. Morocco and Tunisia have made great strides to improve the quality and marketing of some of their farming produce: Tunisia’s outstanding success in producing and exporting olive oil – all olives groves are in private hands and winning international prizes for quality is one of the only true successes of the last 20 years. The fashion for Mediterranean diets is such in the EU and across the world that the opportunities for small and medium enterprises are huge. Private producers in Italy, France, Spain and Greece could partner with their North African peers. But in Tunisia, the best land remains in state hands and is poorly farmed. No amount of advice or soft loans from the World Bank or the European Investment Bank can force Tunisia to adopt a proper farming policy.

Each country has its own history, its own spirit and its own way of doing things, and nowhere is this truer than in farming. When the Algerian government decided to offer long-term leases on state land after 1999, the ensuing boom in production was impressive. In Tunisia, no politician would dare suggest giving land rights to those who live and work on state lands, which are the best in the country. Yet without property rights, the country is condemned to import ever more food rather than produce it domestically. Morocco lags behind its neighbours where levels of education are concerned, which is a major brake on future economic development. The social disparities which bedevil the kingdom point to serious problems ahead. The average level of education is higher in Algeria and Tunisia. Today’s flight of young graduates is the inevitable consequence of the flight of capital.

Banking

The contrast between Morocco, which has a modern banking system that includes two respected international banks – Attijariwafa Bank and Banque Marocaine du Commerce Extérieur (BMCE) – and its neighbours is stark. Algerian national banks belong to the Jurassic age, although French subsidiaries are doing well. Reforms prepared in 1989-91, a period of bold attempts at reform which failed with the civil war of the 1990s, have not only been shelved. The state controlled-economy rules supreme in Algeria today despite the existence of some large private companies. Algerian banks have been recapitalised many times since 1962 and remain the key to the military’s control of the country. The governor of the Central Bank in Algeria is a minor official, in Morocco he is a competent and respected figure who enjoys a measure of autonomy. That said, many small Moroccan entrepreneurs have no access to credit.

Tunisia boasts more banks than Morocco, but they act as predators on the economy. They are run by a few powerful families and serve the interests of a corporatist nomenklatura, paying little attention to the thousands of small and medium companies which are the bedrock of the economy. The Moroccan ruling class maybe very rich – too rich – but the Tunisian nomenklatura is no less wealthy despite its lower profil

Transport

This could provide the showcase of North African integration. In 1972 a visitor could travel by train from Casablanca to Tunis. That stopped in 1975. A high-speed train linking the three capitals could attract huge private and public investment from North African citizens and banks on both sides of the Mediterranean. Flights between North African capitals are very few. Morocco has long implemented an open-skies policy which has brought competition, lower air fares and encouraged foreign tourists, notably from Europe. Algeria imposes hard to get visas, a policy which combined with high air fares discourages foreign visitors. Tunisia for its part is locked into a low-cost tourist model that explains why it earns far less from tourism than Morocco.

Ports offer another story: Tanger MED is a resounding success. Algeria and Tunisia both have projects on the drawing-board. They are likely to remain there. The most absurd symbol of the “non-Maghreb” is the motorway near Oujda, which stops outside the city, a few miles from the Algerian border. North Africa has, with the exception of Morocco, missed out on globalisation. Better and cheaper links with the EU, which absorbs the majority of Moroccan and Tunisian exports, quite apart from sending millions of tourists there every year, offer endless opportunities to create jobs, transfer technology and boost public/private partnerships.

Bringing such systems together and creating synergies in the energy and fertiliser sectors, agrobusiness, banking and transport would be an act of heroism. The great challenge, were frontiers to be opened one day, would be to engineer cross-holdings between Moroccan and Algerian banks. Indeed, one could go further and suggest that Sonatrach and OCP should set up joint ventures. Such thinking was iconoclastic in 2007-08. It is even more so today. Bold moves to build trust will, however, have to include oil and gas, banking, phosphates and fertilisers if North Africa is ever to emerge onto the world economic stage. Inserting Tunisian companies in such cross-holdings would be important and the country does retain one key asset, namely a better educated population than the other two. That advantage, however, will not last if the current political stalemate does not find a solution.

Elites Unwilling to Reform

The continued flight of native capital underlines the extent to which the elites themselves, from Morocco to Egypt, have no trust in the future. The flight of young, educated people compounds the problem.

With a few exceptions, North African elites lack the capacity to think independently. They have usually sought the “imprimatur” of the former colonial power. Briefly, in Algeria in 1988-91 and from the mid-1990s in Morocco, North African elites started to think outside the doxa of the World Bank’s Washington Consensus or their vis-à-vis in France. Having invented industrialisation, colonialism and the modern ideas of freedom and democracy in the XVIII and XIX centuries, the West has been able to tell the story to suit the view it has of itself, one in which the political system and economic culture it created is deemed superior. Those who wished to join the club of civilised nations were forced to pay at the very least, lip service. All this has changed in the course of less than a generation as China, India and the Gulf States have entered the stage and Russia has failed to leave it, as many in the US had assumed.

North African states share a bedrock of Berber identity, which they are still reluctant to fully assume. Arab nationalism has failed. So has political Islam. Morocco’s ruling dynasty has ruled since the late XVII century and acts as a useful foil for the country’s identity. The king exercises ultimate control and has large economic interests. Algeria and Tunisia have a rather confused idea of what they are. In Algeria, clan infighting is a recipe for entrenched lack of reform. The “democratisation” of Tunisia, coming after the cautious management, but incapacity to reform, of the Ben Ali years, has resulted in a weakening of the state’s capacity to govern and a rise in corruption. Populist politics, lack of reforms and the state’s incapacity to work out a blueprint for reform independent of the Washington Consensus doxa has led to the present impasse.

To varying degrees, all three share a form of government that favours stability over innovation. The “asabiyya” theory of “esprit de corps”, formulated by the philosopher Ibn Khaldoun 600 years ago still applies; a powerful military/security apparatus rules; the role of women remains subordinate; freedom to debate is limited. The elites remain unaccountable to those they rule, even as educational standards rise and modern media and social networks bring the debates to every home. Their primary goal is to retain their grip on power, rather than growing the economy, fostering debate or opening their ranks to newcomers.

It thus comes as no surprise that the younger generation do not trust their elders (in Tunisia virtually none of them bother to vote for elections they rightly see as a sham); that there are no world-class universities; and that leading writers publish in Paris. Watching foreign TV channels, notably Al-Jazeera, has replaced public debate over the past twenty years.

Jeffrey Sachs was right to say that the authoritarian regimes of Hosni Moubarak and Zein el Abidine Ben Ali were not merely internal affairs, but were strongly bolstered by the US, France and other countries.16 But ultimate responsibility for the state of the economy lies with national leaderships. Tunisia was long presented, by the World Bank and other specialists, as an “exception” in the Arab world, more modern and sophisticated than its neighbours. The free fall it is currently facing suggests such theories were wrong. Algeria launched bold reforms in the late 1980s, but President Chadli made the mistake of holding free elections at a time of austerity, thus unleashing the genie – some would say the mauvais genie – of Islamic parties. That provoked a backlash that did huge damage to society and the economy. In Morocco, the king is the ultimate arbiter but, however privileged some of his family’s interests might be, they are based in Morocco and ultimately benefit the kingdom. Whether those interests distort competition and to which elites their benefits are distributed, are genuine questions. The mismatch between the successful development of its infrastructure and the low level of the education it offers many of its children remains the greatest challenge.

The first Arab Spring occurred in Algeria a generation ago. It ended in civil war. In 2012, some observers thought that “a counter-revolution cannot be ruled out. It happened in Algeria in the 1990s and there is nothing to say it will not happen again”.17 They were guided by history. A few months earlier, two respected analysts Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, wrote that the Arab revolution had “reached its climax on 11 February, the day President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down”.18 But the truth of Lenin’s theory that a victorious revolution required a structured and disciplined political party, robust leadership and a clear programme quickly reasserted itself. The counter-revolution started on 12 February, which did not prevent many academics and specialists of the Middle East from cheerleading Tunisian democracy until 2021.

With some exceptions, North African elites view their former colonial rulers through a prism of pain or one of sublimated admiration, by turns. Surely it is up to them to change. A forensic knowledge of domestic French politics offers no substitute for the lack of free speech and respect for the rule of law that characterises the region.

As French influence wanes, new actors play an increasing role, notably China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Spain plays its own economic cards today, as do Italy and Germany. Younger North African elites speak English. Many entrepreneurs, notably in Algeria and Tunisia, move to the Gulf. On the whole, their rulers have failed to recognise the key role their worldwide diasporas could play in reinvesting in their country of origin. They have not learned from the recent Chinese leaders who courted the Chinese diaspora when they decided to liberalise the economy a generation ago. Algeria’s leaders are stuck in a time warp, unable to understand that a powerful army and an incompetently run state controlled-economy will never give them greater regional influence. Tunisia is at sea. Morocco has yet to understand that extreme income inequality is not a recipe for long-term stability.

Enterprises Could Make a Different Future

Pessimism is tempered by the success of a few North African, mostly private enterprises. The Tunisian Elloumi Group is the world leader in electric cables for cars, with factories across the world from China to Mexico; the food processing company Poulina has made huge strides in Africa. More recent and smaller Tunisian companies have flourished internationally on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence such a Vermeg and Instadeep. The Moroccan Attijari Tunisie took over the dying Banque du Sud and turned it around, raising it from the 11th largest to the 2nd largest holder of deposits in the country and one of its most profitable banks. OCP has developed many partnerships with state and private companies across the world. Across Africa, the company helps governments determine the best mix of fertilisers for their respective soils, thus making an important contribution to food security. Smaller, high-tech start-ups, such as Omnichanel, an eyewear specialist, and Chari, a B2B e-commerce platform, are flourishing. They are however tempted to move abroad because the legal framework in which the state functions is one of “controlling” companies rather than providing the speed and freedom to be nimble and grow fast.

Even Algeria boasts some large private companies such as the Kerrar pharmaceutical group and Cevital, but they are denied the exposure to international competition that the Elloumi group has faced for decades and which makes it such a rare achievement in North Africa. If Algeria’s rulers continue to deny their entrepreneurs greater freedom, the country’s economy will never diversify. Algeria and Morocco have built corporatist states that facilitate rent-seeking, despite the fact that hundreds of small and medium Tunisian companies are present in both countries. It is always striking to hear private entrepreneurs from the three countries converse: basically, they speak the same language, one which argues for freedom from state interference and a stronger rule of law – in other words the end of the patrimonial state.

North African leaders will never be able to dream of a united Maghreb if they do not reinvent their ways of thinking – which means breaking down the legal, financial and tariff barriers that prevent state and private companies from investing and trading. They condemn their countries to remaining loose pieces on a fast-changing world chessboard, at the mercy of outside players. The ruinous arms race between Algeria and Morocco and the broader cost of closed frontiers rises inexorably. Plots and conspiracies are imagined and invented and, meanwhile, history slips by. Europe for its part has failed to turn the Mediterranean into an internal sea. Fear, often disdain for “the other” offers no substitute for strategy. As France has remained dominant in the making and running of EU policy on North Africa, there is a danger that French hubris past and present could morph into a collective EU downfall. Since the turn of the century France has had no long-term strategy for engaging in a region which is key to Europe’s future, but we can always console ourselves with General de Gaulle’s thought that “the future lasts a long time”.19

1 D. Strauss-Kahn, What borders for Europe?

2 G.Z. Pataki, The Cost of Non-Europe in the Single Market (Cecchini revisited), European Parliament, 3 October 2014.

3 The World Bank, Economic Integration in the Maghreb, October 2010.

4 International Monetary Fund (IMF), Economic Integration in the Maghreb: An Untapped Source of Growth, 13 February 2019.

5 “El Coste del No-Maghreb”, IEMed and Toledo International Center for Peace (CITpax), Madrid, May 2006 and Barcelona, November 2007; “A Dream to be Fulfilled, A Unified Maghreb could play a role on the world stage”, The Peterson Institute for International Economy, Washington, May 2008; “Energy and Regional Integration in the Western Mediterranean”, CIDOB-OCP Seminar, Barcelona, July 2010.

6 G. Achcar, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising, Saqi, 2013.

7 A. Daron and J. Robinson, “Why Nations Fails: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty”, Crown, 2012.

8 H. Münkler, “Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States”, Polity Pr, 2007.

9 Conversations the author has had with dozens of North Africans over ten years.

10 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Arab Human Development Report, 2022.

11V. Wallaert, M. Dioudonnat, and A. Seon, “Le ‘11 septembre à l’envers’ et l’impasse des politiques euromed”, Institut de la Meditérranée, Marseille, Spring 2011.

12 A. Drissi, “Phosphates, Energy and the rest – the alchemy of the Maghreb”, CIDOB-OCP seminar, Barcelona 4-5 July 2010.

13 “L’Union méditerranéenne: Coquille vide ou projet ambitieux”, L’Economiste, 17 October 2007.

14 “Interview to Dominique de Villepin”, France Inter, 31 August 2023.

15 F. Ghilès and E. Woertz, Tunisian Phosphates and the Politics of the Periphery, in H. Verhoeven, Environmental Politics in the Middle East, Hurst, 2018.

16 J. Sachs, “The Arab World’s Agents of Change”, The New York Times, 28 March 2011.

17 F. Ghilès, “L’armée algérienne a-t-elle une politique économique?”, L’Algérie, Pouvoirs, no. 086, Autumn 1998.

18 H. Agha and R. Malley, “This is not a Revolution”, New York Review of Books, 29 September 2011.

19 C. de Gaulle, Memoires de guerre, Le Salut, 1944-1946, vol 3, Plon, 1959, quoted in what is arguably the best analysis of the Arab revolts of 2011: Achcar (2013).

2. The Limits of Economic Integration in the Maghreb

Intissar Fakir, Haneen Zeglam

The common understanding of the state of economic integration in the Maghreb is that it is victim to geopolitical rivalries and poor economic management, both of which prevent the region from flourishing to the same extent as other regional blocs. The forgone conclusion is that greater economic integration would generate trade, boost levels of growth and increase the region’s bargaining position.

But as the global debate about nearshoring and the importance of local value chains continues, a renewed look at the appeal of this goal of a more integrated Maghreb is warranted. It is also important to understand the current reality of economic exchanges and the readiness and willingness of Maghreb countries to engage outside of the established geopolitical wisdom about rivalry and tension. This will help assess the viability of such an aspiration, which has diminished over the last few decades as countries have prioritised global integration and multilateral alignment and as domestic agendas have taken on different trajectories.

While the geopolitical rivalry between Morocco and Algeria has provided a ready-made excuse for the lack of integration, a broad range of practical obstacles exist. While some of these obstacles relate back to geopolitics, others are the result of naturally divergent domestic, economic and social agendas. High tariff and non-tariff measures, poor infrastructure, a history of governments adopting different state-business relations and divergent political economies make the potential for harmonised regulation almost nil. Instead, governments have traditionally favoured external partnerships, particularly with the European Union (EU) which largely provides “hub and spoke” agreements as opposed to negotiating collectively.20 This prioritisation of trade partnerships outside the region has only been growing in recent decades, taking the impetus and need out of regional integration.

Barriers to Economic Integration

The often-invoked International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) figure of 2 to 5% of intra-regional trade attests to these limitations,21 making the Maghreb one of the least integrated regions in the world. In comparison, intra-regional trade in Africa, Latin America and Asia stands closer to 16, 19 and 51% respectively.22 Within Africa, even in comparison to other blocs such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the East African Community (EAC), the Maghreb still has the second-lowest rate of shared intra-regional trade on the continent.23 Only a few goods are regularly traded between the Maghreb states, mainly fuels and mineral oils exported from Algeria, vegetable oils and machinery from Tunisia and vehicular and electrical equipment from Morocco. Outside of these areas, the bulk of the Maghreb’s trade is with Europe, which partly reflects historical conditions but also more recent efforts on the part of individual countries to liberalise trade with Europe.

Tab 2.1 - North Africa official trade figures

*The rate of trade has been decreasing annually between the years 1995 and 2021.

Source: Author’s calculations based on Observatory of Economic Complexity Country Data (2021).

To help put the data of Table 2.1 into perspective, Figure 2.1 compares the scale of each Maghreb country’s most significant intra-regional trade relationship with that of its primary trading partner (Italy for Libya and Algeria, China for Mauritania, France for Tunisia and Spain for Morocco).24

Fig 2.1 - Comparative value of top global and regional trading relationships

Source: Author’s table displaying data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity’s Country Data (2021).

Existing levels of trade vary substantially between different pairings of countries in the region, as does the potential for trade. For example, although trade between Morocco and Tunisia is often described as existing far below the potential level, the extent of their trading relationship has seen incremental improvements in the last two decades.25 Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, and Mauritania have generally favourable trade relations; Morocco, for example, is Mauritania’s largest trading partner in Africa. In comparison, flows between Algeria, Libya and Mauritania are particularly low. Their similar economic profiles and heavy reliance on natural resources and oil exports would make it difficult to improve trade between them.

Since the rupture of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Algeria in August 2021, trade levels have decreased as the two countries have halted flights, further restricting movement and flow of goods. Another blow to trade relations came in 2021. The Maghreb-Europe pipeline that facilitates the transport of LNG to Spain passes through Morocco – and for that Morocco receives transit fees and a percentage of piped gas. As the agreement between Algeria, Spain and Morocco came due for a renewal, drawn out negotiations began to put its future in question. The agreement negotiation process was in doubt long before tensions broke out between the two – but the latter did little to help. And with the failure to renegotiate an extension of the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline deal Algerian gas exports to Morocco ended in November 2021 further diminishing what little trade existed between the neighbours. While official trade remains low, illicit trade thrives in border areas. Without data to quantify it, anecdotal evidence and investigative reporting show how peripheral regions rely on access to goods such as subsidised fuel smuggled from Algeria to Morocco and Tunisia. Basic commodities like flour, sugar, cooking oil, vegetables and fruit flow across borders. Notably in Tunisia, informal trade provides a release valve against food shortages as the economic crisis rages.

Not only does the state of trade relationships within the region differ, but the region scores differently on various metrics of economic integration, as shown in the Africa Regional Integration Index Report (ARII).26 In comparison with other regional economic communities, the Maghreb is relatively weak on the free movement of people, with entry into Morocco and Libya generally requiring visas for other Maghreb citizens. Yet the region performs relatively well in terms of integrative macroeconomic policies – a metric that measures policies to stabilise macroeconomic indicators including healthy financial climate – with Morocco and Tunisia scoring especially high.27

The Arab Maghreb Union’s average score for “productive integration” (the level to which the productive capacities of each country complement those of other countries in the region) is moderate, but within that the scores of member countries vary considerably, ranging from close to zero for Mauritania to 0.796 for Tunisia. Overall, looking at the sixteen ARII indicators, grouped by five dimensions of economic integration, a mixed picture emerges, the extent of which is often overlooked.28 Although on the surface economic integration in the region is low, the most commonly cited statistics fail to consider the differences that exist in intra-regional relationships and across different metrics of integration.

Regional Disconnection

Looking at barriers, one of the fundamental challenges is the lack of viable, secure and open connections between regional capitals and trade hubs. And so, on the surface, one of the clearest impediments to trade is poor physical infrastructural connectivity. Sea, air, road, and rail transport across the region are all insufficiently developed.

Although railway networks exist within Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, their routes are often limited and none currently cross borders. Train connections that had once ran between Algeria and Tunisia have become dormant. In recent years, schemes to run a direct service between Annaba (Algeria) and Tunis have faced repeated delays due to technical problems.29 In 2019, there was talk of regional railway officials meeting to discuss the feasibility of a project linking Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia by high-speed rail but there has been little development.30 Similar plans had also been mentioned in 2015 by the Algerian National Railway Transport company (SNTF) but also came to nothing. Libya and Mauritania currently have no active railroads.

The Cairo-Dakar Highway or Trans-African Highway 1 (TAH1) is the only commercial highway that could potentially link all the Maghreb states, running from Cairo through Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Rabat before dropping down the coast of West Africa to Nouakchott and Dakar. The highway was initially developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in the 1970s and has been expanded incrementally with funding from the African Union, African Bank of Development, and the European Investment Bank.31 The highway is not accessible between Morocco and Algeria given the permanently closed border. The closed land border is a physical barrier at which the flow of movement stops. Other parts of the highway across Libya, Tunisia, and near the Mauritania-Western Sahara border remain either unfinished or in dire need of repair.32

Building cross-regional connections would require regional coordination of policies and regulations. For example, railroad gauges must be compatible for trains to pass from one country to another. Moreover, improvements to infrastructure to allow better regional connectivity would require significant investment on behalf of the states themselves. Morocco has invested heavily in improving its domestic infrastructure as it looks to increase Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), with fast train connections expanding beyond the Tangier-Casablanca line and new lines looking to link its Tangier MED port to various free trade or industrial zones across the country.

Fig. 2.2 - Proposed route of TAH1 from Cairo to Dakar as part of the Trans-Africa Highway initiative

Source: African Development Bank (AfDB), “Cross-border road corridors:
The quest to integrate Africa”, 2019.

In 2022, Morocco’s government announced an investment of US$850 million to modernise and develop the country’s railways between 2022 and 2024.33 However, these infrastructural improvements fail to serve better regional connectivity. This heavy focus on domestic infrastructure and maritime transport hubs reflects the fact that its land border with Algeria is closed and ground access to Mauritania is limited by the border’s proximity to the contested territory of the Western Sahara, making it difficult for people to travel freely and safely.

Algeria, in recent years, has been more focused on improving infrastructural connectivity with its neighbours to the south. Since 2011, the government has spent US$2.25 billion on developing its 850 km portion of the Trans-Saharan Highway running from the north to the south of the country and on into Niger and Nigeria.34 Although the project was only scheduled to be completed in December 2024 there are signs of it progressing at a faster rate than expected,35 in stark comparison to the limited progress being made on completing and maintaining TAH1.

Maritime transport is the main method of intra-regional trade and yet still mainly services trade with Europe. Although all Maghreb countries have ports, there are few intra-regional direct routes serviced by commercial shipping lines. From three of the major ports in Libya (Benghazi, Al Khums and Misrata), there are no direct routes to anywhere else in the region, with routes instead providing links to Turkey and Malta. Between Tunisia’s two main ports (Sfax and Tunis) there is only one frequent route to another Maghreb port (Tanger MED). Much more frequent are the extra-regional links to France and Italy. Mauritania’s two largest ports (Nouakchott and Nouadhibou) have no direct routes to any other port in the region, instead shipping cargo directly to either Spanish islands such as Tenerife and Gran Canaria or down the West Coast of Africa to Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Due to this lack of direct routes, some shipping trade across North Africa requires transfer through third-country ports, such as Marseille, Almeria or Malta, generating additional costs to the endeavour. Overall, although there have been some efforts in the past to improve overall cross-border infrastructure, the extent of the challenges remains significant.

Trade Complementarity

Moreover, it is unclear how much can be gained from improving infrastructure alone without efforts to relax restrictive trade policies and mitigate trade costs and tariffs. Although the average applied tariffs on imports excluded from existing trade deals have decreased, they remain significantly high compared to other regions. For example, the average tariff in Maghreb countries was estimated as 14% in 2016, compared with 5% in the EU, 4% in the United States, and 10% in China.36 Algeria is the most highly protected market, with an average tariff of 19%. The other states average around 12%.37 Underlying these rates are often protectionist governments and, in some cases, private stakeholders keen to safeguard their domestic market shares. Government protections are particularly strong in the agricultural sector. More than that, there is a good deal of inconsistency and a tendency for governments to interfere with international trading mechanisms to protect their markets when under pressure. For example, the Algerian government announced a temporary ban on the import of around 850 categories of goods and increased custom duties on luxury produces in 2018 to curb spending and slow budget deficit as oil prices slumped.

Non-tariff expenses add significantly to the average cost and time involved in exports and imports. Border compliance costs vary between the most efficient exporters (Morocco and Tunisia) and the least (Algeria, Libya) but are still among the highest in the world.38 Time to export is broadly comparable to other emerging markets and developing economies but substantially higher than in advanced economies. Additional challenges include red tape, delays at border crossings, complex customs clearance procedures, and a lack of common standards.

While some predictions argue that a North Africa Free Trade Zone would increase intra-regional trade by 3 to 5%, i.e. €3 to €5 billion and would boost FDI by 75%, there is little understanding of the potential down sides to such an agreement. No doubt, for oil producing countries that have not yet diversified their economies, the fear of certain regional products flooding local markets and threatening costly and heavily protected sectors should not be overlooked. A related element is the extent to which untapped trade potential exists in terms of produced goods. According to the IMF, the Maghreb states have an overall complementarity index39 that is comparable to that between the region and the EU and forms a substantial source of untapped trade potential.40 However, although the potential trade complementarity between certain countries in the region may be higher than the observed bilateral trade, these calculations do not account for the aforementioned logistical barriers to further trade and the complex contemporary context.

For this reason, there is disagreement about the reality of this compatibility.41 For example, the similar export profiles of Algeria and Libya, both predominantly hydrocarbon and mineral exporters, make their trade complementarity particularly low. Morocco and Tunisia perform slightly better with more diversified exports. Nonetheless, and despite efforts at diversification, the range of goods exported by Morocco and Tunisia (textile, agri-food, electrical and mechanical industries) remains quite similar. The low trade complementarity between the two has complicated genuine efforts to trade more. A few exceptions can be observed. Figures from the Africa Trade Monitor42 show that Tunisia has a modest potential for trade in Libya (US$181 million), in Algeria (US$198 million), and in Morocco (US$187 million); Libya has some potential in Morocco (US$8 million) as does Algeria (US$31 million); and Algeria has some export potential in Tunisia (US$22 million).43 Greater trade diversification is required to merit the investment in infrastructure, harmonisation of regulation, and diplomatic engagement needed to drive greater integration.44 Given the practical barriers and pre-existing strong trade relationships with Europe, discussion of further trade integration in the Maghreb needs to address the cost-benefit calculation of enhancing regional trade.

Is a Maghreb Union Still Relevant?

The countries of the Maghreb largely pursue bilateral and semi-regional relationships as, for many of them, the time of intra-regional engagement has effectively come and gone. The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) was created in 1989 with the aim of building integrated economic and political structures across the region but comprehensively failed. Since its collapse, little else has made headway. The AMU, often viewed as a casualty of mistrust among neighbours, included the establishment of a Maghreb Free Trade Area, a customs union, and a common market with free movement across the borders of member countries.45 Hindered by the requirement of unanimous agreement – an unusual requirement as opposed to some type of majority vote – few of the proposed mechanisms proceeded. Although over thirty multilateral agreements were signed during its existence by some of the member states, only five received the full unanimous backing necessary for implementation.46 The Council of Heads of State held in 1994 was the last AMU summit and no high-level meetings have managed to bring together delegates of all five countries since 2008. Although there is still a Secretariat based in Rabat led by Taieb Baccouche, the current Tunisian Secretary-General, the organisation for all purposes is defunct. It remains unable to overcome regional divisions.

Other less ambitious regional attempts have also failed, even those that sought to bypass the Moroccan-Algerian rivalry. The Maghreb Union of Employers (UME), created in 2007 to try and reinvigorate business cooperation in the Maghreb, failed to overcome government reluctance and bring about any real change, allowing national markets to remain disconnected, value chains fragmented, and barriers still in place.47 More recently, there were discussions between Maghreb trade ministers about negotiating the establishment of a Maghreb Free Trade Area in 2010 but no agreement was ever finalised, and economic integration fell down the list of priorities amidst the unrest of 2011. The launch of the Maghreb Initiative for Commerce and Investment (IMCI) and the Arab Maghreb Union Investment Bank (BMICE) in 2014 also failed to dismantle barriers to the growth of intra-regional commerce and industry. To overcome the geopolitical hurdle that exacerbated challenges to regional integration, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan signed the Agadir Free Trade Agreement which came into force in 2007. However, this agreement has been mired in delays and challenges over tariff agreements, with Morocco and other exporters running into restrictions imposed by pre-existing Free Trade Agreements.

As the dream of a united Maghreb endures especially among external actors, Russia launched its own bid for a free trade zone with North Africa. As Russia looks to revive its economic ties, having been shunned by the EU after the Ukraine invasion, it sees potential in North Africa. Russia is currently a significant trading partner for Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania and trade with each is growing at an annual rate of 7.4%, 12.1% and 10% respectively.48 Russian exports to Morocco doubled in the first six months of 202249 and the country’s decades-long close relationship with Algeria has only continued to grow. After the Russia-Africa summit in July 2023, Russia’s announcement indicated its clear need to increase imports from North Africa, but there is little indication of what the multilateral benefit of this agreement would be, given that Morocco and Algeria’s rupture is so pronounced and that previous efforts to limit tariffs among some of these countries (see the Agadir Agreement) have run into challenges from competing FTAs.

Bilateral Supplants Regional

While regional initiatives fail and others are stuck in limbo, bilateral trade relationships with actors from outside the region thrive. Relations with European countries and the EU have expanded through a series of bilateral processes, treaties, and association agreements that continue to grow in scope and sophistication. Today, the bulk of Maghreb trade is with the EU.50 However, over the last two decades, trade relationships between the Maghreb states and other global actors have also increased, notably with Turkey, China, and India. Turkey has had a free agreement with Tunisia since 2004 and Morocco since 2007 and is the latter’s 5th largest trade partner (after the EU, India, Brazil, and the US with whom Morocco has had an FTA since 2004 – though not without its challenges).51 In Algeria, Turkey is among the largest investors, and in Libya Turkey’s continued military engagement is likely pursued with an eye to developing business and economic interests as the maritime deal signed in 2019 – although it remains in limbo – suggests.

This search for partnerships further allows greater globalisation and geopolitical influence. Maghreb countries, none of whom see great potential in an integrated regional bloc, understand the immediate efficiency of trading with the rest of the world.52 China’s Belt and Road initiative swept through North Africa promising greater trade and investment opportunities. While the outcome has yet to match expectations for investment, Chinese trade has increased almost across the board in North Africa. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Morocco-China trade has increased by an annual 15% (from 1995 to 2021), almost all of which is one way.53 Similarly with Tunisia, Chinese trade has increased 6.6% annually,54 and with Algeria, where China is one of the main economic partners, the annual increase for the same period was 14%.55 There is also a noticeable rise in trade with India emerging across North Africa. Over the past 25 years the exports of Algeria to India have increased at an annualised rate of 21.3%, with trade now worth US$555 million.56 Since 2020, Moroccan exports to India (primarily chemicals and fertilisers) have been worth an excess of US$1.39 billion, although growing at a slower annual rate than Algeria’s.

Redefining Regional

Reawakened to the potential for geopolitical influence and economic potential on their African turf, Maghreb governments are repositioning themselves to benefit from the continent’s economic potential. A study by the Boston Consulting Group found that one quarter of the largest African multinational corporations founded in the last few decades are based in North Africa.57 This underscores the prioritisation of greater intra-African cooperation and the interest of the Maghreb’s private sector in capturing African markets. But the levels of bilateral trade between the Maghreb and Sahelian and sub-Saharan countries is currently even lower than trade between Maghreb countries themselves. In 2020, only 8% of Morocco’s exports were to Sahelian and Sub-Saharan African countries, and 3% of its imports.58 For sub-Saharan Africa, Moroccan trade constitutes only 0.57% of its imports and 5.81 of its exports.59 Tunisian imports from Sub Saharan Africa constitute 0.33% of the country’s total imports; exports account for 2.97%. Algerian data (latest available is from 2016) shows even lower percentages, 0.40% of imports and 0.43% of exports. Libya’s latest figures from 2017 show 0.11% of imports and 0.06% in exports to Sub Saharan Africa.

Morocco is somewhat of a newcomer to regional institutions as it did not join the African Union until 2017, but the country has since internalised economic engagement in Africa as a key goal. This is being done partly to facilitate greater diplomatic engagement on its foreign policy priority: the Western Sahara conflict. However, impetus aside, the engagement has taken on a life of its own, manifesting in meaningful avenues and in superficial ways meant to signal interest. Private and public Moroccan firms are investing in industries across Africa – telecommunications, agriculture, banking, and transport. In 2017, Morocco applied for membership of ECOWAS despite a number of serious obstacles: the fact that it is not contiguously linked to the trading bloc, the unsettled status of the Western Sahara and the challenging issue of single currency and free movement among other things. However, the move foreshadows Morocco’s interest in building a strong partnership with the bloc to facilitate important infrastructural and economic engagement, including ambitious projects such as the Morocco-Nigeria pipeline – Morocco’s effort to facilitate transport of and access to Nigerian gas through a pipeline running along the West African coast lines. Without falling into the trap of viewing every development through the lens of Moroccan-Algerian rivalry, the fear of missing out is as real in geopolitics as it is in human behaviour. With Algeria’s dormant plans for the grand Sahara pipeline, and its prioritisation of connectivity with the Sahel, Morocco is not only looking to catch up but to pull ahead.

In terms of trade, Morocco has so far been able to push through more forcefully than Algeria and is currently engaging with the Sahel more on diplomatic and security fronts. For a quick comparison, Morocco’s exports to Mali reached US$64 million in 2020, compared to Algeria’s US$14 million. Moroccan private companies are investing financially in the Sahel despite the instability, with Moroccan firms prominent in Burkina Faso’s construction industry and in Chad’s mining sector.

The ambitious African Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA), originally proposed and brokered by the African Union in 2018, would increase trade and connect the continent in a way it has never experienced before.

In the long term it would also render the need for an integrated Maghreb bloc obsolete. But many questions have yet to be answered about the AfCFTA as it is still in its early stages. While the agreement has been ratified by all North African countries except Libya, negotiations are delayed in certain cases, and applications of national and regional plans are in varying degrees of completion and progress. The role of the private sector remains unclear, and funding is yet to be fully committed. Furthermore, while some regional mechanisms like ECOWAS are meant to eventually be consolidated into the AfCFTA, it is uncertain how other dormant or empty mechanisms, such as the AMU or the Community of Sahel States (CENSAD) or even the Agadir agreement, would feed into this continental mechanism.60

While the idea of an integrated Maghreb is still referenced by well-meaning external actors, local realities continue to drift away from it. For Morocco and Tunisia, and increasingly Mauritania, this means strengthening partnerships with the EU and broadening beyond the EU. For Algeria it means a strengthening of existing partnerships with China, and the EU – especially right now on energy exports – and greater integration into alternative power structures that align with its priorities, such as BRICS.

Already with existing trade deals between Maghreb countries and various partners, there is or will be a point at which too many FTAs will become difficult to monitor and enforce. This question is more relevant for countries like Morocco and maybe Tunisia. At a certain point, government administration of these different deals will become cumbersome and the private sector’s ability to keep up will be tapped out. Perhaps Morocco and Tunisia might be facing a situation of diminishing returns. And with the prioritisation of global integration for some of these countries, and with bilateral alignments that reflect their political priorities for others, an integrated Maghreb on its own is unviable. In the best-case scenario, the success of the AfCTA would bring a lowering of barriers and progress on connections and flow of goods but it is not clear how that will change other fundamental challenges like trade compatibility and diplomatic tensions.

20 A. Walsh and A. Boustati, “Trade integration in North Africa: Impediments and Opportunities”, K4D Institute of Development Studies, September 2020.

21 African Development Bank, “Report on Regional Integration in the Maghreb: Challenges and Opportunities for the Private Sector”, October 2020.

22 International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Economic Integration in the Maghreb: An Untapped Source of Growth”, February 2019.

23 Konrad Adnauer Stiftung (KAS), “Regional Integration for the Arab Maghreb Union: Looking Beyond the Horizon”, November 2020.

24 Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Country Data, 2021.

25 KAS (2020).

26 L. Baghdadi, Z. Karray and C. Zaki, “The Arab Maghreb Union: Regionalization without Integration” in A. Bouet, G. Tadesse and C. Zaki (eds.), Africa Agriculture Trade Monitor 2021, International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri), 2021, pp. 166-98.

27 Africa Regional Integration Index, “Dimensions”, 2023.

28 Ibid.

29 “Train to link Algeria, Tunisia”, Middle East Monitor (MEMO), 9 May 2017.

30 L. Ghanmi, “AMU revamps Maghreb railway project”, The Arab Weekly, February 2019.

31 B. Archibong et al., “Why Africa Matters to United States: Top 5 reasons”, Brookings Africa Growth Initiative, 7 December 2022.

32 African Development Bank (AfDB), “Cross Border Road Corridors: The Quest to Integrate Africa”, June 2019.

33 Railway PRO, “Morocco to invest USD 850 million by 2024”, 10 November 2021.

34 C. Fourneris, “African Unity Road linking Algiers to Lagos nears Completion”, EuroNews, 21 November 2022.

35 African Development Bank Group Data Portal, “Multinational - Trans-Sahara Highway Project (Niger)”, 15 September 2023.

36 IMF (2019).

37 Walsh and Boustati (2020).

38 Baghdadi, Karray, and Zaki (2021).

39 The trade complementarity index indicates to what extent the export profile of the reporting country matches, or complements, the import profile of the partner country. A high index may indicate that the two countries would stand to gain from increased trade.

40 IMF (2019).

41 Walsh and Boustati (2020).

42 Baghdadi, Karray, and Zaki (2021).

43 A Verdier-Chouchane et al., “Trade Diversification and Intra-Regional Trade in North Africa”, in A. Verdier-Chouchane, M. Sami Ben Ali, and C. Karagueuzian (eds.) Economic Development in the Middle East and North Africa: Challenges and Prospects, New York, Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016, pp. 173-95.

44 S. Devarajan, “Why is regional integration so elusive?”, Brookings, 6 July 2017.

45 Baghdadi, Karray, and Zaki (2021).

46 Ibid.

47 A. Boukhars, “Maghreb: Dream of Unity, Reality of Divisions”, Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, 3 June 2018.

48 Observatory of Economic Complexity Country Data (2021).

49 J. Rahhou, “Russia’s Exports to Morocco Double in First Half of 2022”, Morocco World News, 4 September 2022.

50 IMF (2019).

51 World Trade Organisation (WTO), “Morocco and the WTO”, June 2021.

52 World Bank, Economic Integration in the Maghreb, October 2010.

53 Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Country Data 2021.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 S. Chabenne et al., “The African Challengers: Global Competitors Emerge from the Overlooked Continent”, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), 2 June 2010.

58 Trade Law Centre, “Morocco: Intra-Africa trade and tariff profile 2020”, July 2021.

59 World Integrated Trade Solutions, Country Data: Morocco, World Bank, 2020.

60 T. Tayo, “The Road to Africa’s Single Market: Progress so far and challenges for the future”, Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI), March 2023.

3. The Western Sahara Conflict as the Chicken and Egg of the “Non-Maghreb”

Irene Fernández-Molina, Miguel Hernando de Larramendi, Raquel Ojeda-García

The Changing Shape of a Protracted Conflict

The dispute over Western Sahara may be characterised as a protracted decolonisation and territorial-sovereignty conflict with a regional dimension, which has long determined the course of international relations and foreign policies in the Maghreb. Following a series of developments triggered by the United Nations’ (UN) demand for the decolonisation of the territory known at the time as Spanish Sahara – including the birth in 1973 of the Polisario Front as a national liberation movement representing the indigenous Sahrawi people, Morocco’s judicial and diplomatic offensive to assert its claim over the territory, and Spain’s delayed announcement of plans to hold a referendum on self-determination (1964-75) – the combination of the Spanish U-turn enshrined in the Madrid Accords and the Moroccan Green March gave rise to the foreign occupation of this non-self-governing territory and a conflict that remains unresolved to this day. The conflict as such has gone through three main stages since late 1975:

Open war (1975-1991) between the two recognised conflict parties, the Polisario Front – which declared the establishment of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in early 1976 – versus Morocco, plus Mauritania during the first four years (with total casualty estimates ranging from 6,000 to 16,000,61 including over 1,400 mine/unexploded remnants of war casualties);62

Conflict freezing and thwarted resolution process (1991-2020) since the two parties’ acceptance of the UN Settlement Plan and ceasefire declaration, including the successive failures of the implementation of the self-determination referendum envisaged in this plan (1991-2000), UN attempts at brokering a “political solution” through the Baker Plans I and II (2000-04) as well as the “negotiations without preconditions”63 pursued thereafter through shuttle diplomacy and direct talks in Manhasset (2007-08) and Geneva (2018-19);

Violent thawing and resumption of low-intensity hostilities (2020 to the present) since the ceasefire fell apart, leading to the exchange of strikes between the Polisario Front and Morocco (including drone strikes by the latter), which remain ongoing to date.

The chief features of the Western Sahara conflict are its protractedness and intractability. Protractedness characterises not only Morocco’s control over most of the disputed territory, which has solidified with a straightforward legal-administrative annexation of the so-called “Southern provinces” since 1976-79, challenging international law. There is also a protracted refugee situation – one of the oldest under the remit of UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) – created by the flight and longstanding settlement of a large proportion of the Sahrawi people in the Tindouf camps in south-western Algeria. As to the conflict’s intractability or resistance to all resolution efforts, this stems from the zero-sum view of the goal incompatibility between the parties, and the existential value they attach to Moroccan “national territorial integrity” and Sahrawi self-determination respectively.

When it comes to its evolution in the XXI century, two main developments must be noted. Firstly, as the resolution process stalled in the early 2000s, the international politics of the conflict started to be reshaped by an “inward turn” caused by the combination of Rabat’s development and launch of the 2007 Autonomy Plan (under its sovereignty) for Western Sahara, on the one hand, and the rise of Sahrawi non-violent civil resistance and pro-independence activism inside the same Moroccan-annexed territory, on the other.64 The latter process shone the spotlight on two problematic side-effects of its long-lasting occupation, i.e. Morocco’s human rights violations and economic exploitation of its natural resources, which the Polisario Front subsequently turned into the basis of a new, twofold “low politics” international strategy. This strategy comprised two main planks: seeking a UN Security Council extension of the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to human rights monitoring; and pursuing political and legal action against Western Sahara’s inclusion by default in many of the international economic cooperation agreements concluded by Morocco. The main targets were the UN and the United States (US), which saw unprecedented diplomatic crises with Morocco over the human rights issue in 2012-13; and the European Union (EU), whose multiple bilateral deals lacking any territorial differentiation between Morocco and Western Sahara started to be challenged through parliamentary (European Parliament) and judicial (Court of Justice of the EU [CJEU]) routes in the same decade.

Secondly and more recently, Western Sahara’s three-decade status as a frozen conflict abruptly came to an end in 2020-21 as the ceasefire collapsed, hostilities resumed between the parties and broader regional instability escalated.65 This violent thawing related to three major developments on the local, regional and international levels. The local, direct trigger, in October-November 2020, was a crisis in Guerguerat, a border crossing between the far south of Moroccan-annexed Western Sahara and Mauritania which is traversed by the demilitarised buffer strip established by the 1991 ceasefire. A sustained Sahrawi civilian protest called by the Polisario Front in this strip blocked the road that connects Morocco with Mauritania through Western Sahara, disrupting land traffic and transport, and was eventually cleared through a Moroccan military operation beyond the dividing line – which thereby breached the terms of the ceasefire (military agreement No. 1).66 This, in turn, pushed the Polisario Front to declare the end of its commitment to the ceasefire and the long-threatened return to armed struggle.67 As a result, the conflict entered a new stage of what the UN describes as “low-intensity hostilities”, with reported “firing incidents across the berm” from both sides, as well as Moroccan drone strikes.68

At the international level, shortly after the Guerguerat crisis, the US unilaterally recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara through a presidential proclamation by President Donald Trump in December 2020.69 This unexpected pro-Moroccan turn came as part of a trilateral transactional deal whereby Rabat committed itself to normalising its bilateral relations with Israel following in the steps of the Abraham Accords concluded by United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.70 A hitherto unthinkable diplomatic victory that emboldened Morocco, the US recognition sent shock waves through the Maghreb and beyond, upsetting Algeria and destabilising Rabat’s bilateral relations with at least three Western European states – Germany, Spain and France – which Morocco now pressured to align with Washington’s new position. Two and a half years later, the same process would yield a formal Israeli declaration of recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in July 2023.71 Finally, at the regional level, spiralling tensions between Morocco and Algeria culminated in the latter’s decision to cut bilateral diplomatic relations in August 2021. While this escalatory step was officially justified by a wide array of grievances and the Western Sahara conflict was only mentioned in a general and formalistic way, the two developments set out above certainly contributed to the rupture.

This takes us back to the chicken-and-egg debate that underlies any historical and contemporary analysis of international relations in the Maghreb: what came first, Moroccan-Algerian rivalry or the Western Sahara conflict?72 Those who give causal precedence to the former highlight how post-colonial bilateral territorial disputes between the two neighbouring states broke out right after Algeria’s independence, provoking the Sand War in 1963, which suggests that the Western Sahara issue was thereafter fuelled and instrumentalised as a means to an end within the context of competing state-building and regional hegemony projects. The opposing view is that it was the Western Sahara conflict that crystallised, entrenched and granted an intractable identity dimension to bilateral tensions that would otherwise have become more manageable over time, if not totally diluted. These causal arguments also relate to politicised disagreements about the very nature of the conflict, between proponents of its framing as a “decolonisation/self-determination conflict” and as a “regional conflict”. While the former label is grounded in international law, the latter inevitably resonates with the Moroccan official line, which denies Sahrawi agency and portrays the Polisario Front as a mere puppet in the hands of rival Algeria, the “real party in this conflict” according to Rabat.73 In fact, though, the two interpretations need not be mutually exclusive, and binary reasonings do not do justice to the complex origins and the multi-layered sediments of time in this conflict.74

In sum, while interacting with clashing post-colonial state- and nation-building struggles, geopolitical interests and opposing Cold War ideologies and alignments, the Western Sahara conflict has congealed as the chief cause and incarnation of the “non-Maghreb”.

The Lens Through Which Morocco Sees the World

“The Sahara issue is the lens through which Morocco looks at its international environment. It is the clear, simple benchmark whereby my country measures the sincerity of friendships and the efficiency of partnerships”, stated King Mohammed VI in August 2022.75

The existential value attached to Moroccan “national territorial integrity” is such that, since its inception, the Western Sahara conflict has dominated the country’s entire foreign policy agenda as the superior priority and cross-cutting issue,76 if not a distorting lens overdetermining behaviour elsewhere. This is somewhat paradoxical given that policies concerning the annexed territory are considered to be domestic as a matter of principle. In fact, what drives Rabat’s foreign policy conduct in this respect is the persistent mismatch or friction between the internal and international orders of things: a long-consolidated annexation from the perspective of domestic governance effectiveness and law which nevertheless, despite varying levels of external de facto connivance, has until recently received a minimal, close-to-zero degree of formal international recognition and legalisation. Morocco’s longstanding top foreign policy goal has thus been to close the gap by achieving the latter. Positions on Western Sahara have always drawn the line between Rabat’s friends and foes, both bilaterally and in terms of multilateral regional integration – as most notably shown by Morocco’s withdrawal from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1984, following the latter’s admission of the SADR as a member. At the same time, until the 2010s, the country’s foreign policy role as a champion of national territorial integrity has been generally clash-free and compatible with its unwavering alliance with and recognition from the West, chiefly the US and the EU.

That being said, Morocco’s foreign policy strategies on this issue have swung over time between more cooperative and more coercive or confrontational approaches. One crucial dynamic explaining this variation is the interaction between Western Sahara’s management on the domestic and international fronts. Since Mohammed VI’s accession to the throne, the Moroccan position has seen a succession of virtuous and vicious circles in this regard.77 In the early 2000s, the possibility of solving the conflict through an autonomy formula under Moroccan sovereignty – known at the time as the “third way” – made headway both internally and internationally, enabled by a relative political opening and decrease in repression in the annexed territory (1999-2003).78 Yet, this came to a halt following Rabat’s rejection of the Baker Plan II, which turned the kingdom into a spoiler that openly hindered the UN’s peacemaking efforts and plunged its international negotiation strategy into deep crisis (2003-06). We later saw another shift towards an emphatic conciliatory policy towards the Sahrawi population internally, including the resurrection of the Royal Consultative Council for Saharan Affairs (CORCAS), in parallel to Morocco’s drafting and wide-ranging international promotion of an Autonomy Plan – now distinctly unilateral – for Western Sahara (2006-08).79

However, from 2009 and throughout the 2010s, the effects of the conflict’s inward turn and the Sahrawis’ “low politics” international strategy drastically intensified domestic governance tensions and Morocco’s crackdown in Western Sahara, while increasing the strain on Rabat’s relations with several of its main international partners. Following a pioneering official visit to the Tindouf camps by prominent Sahrawi activists from inside the annexed territory, which formalised the latter’s growing alignment with the Polisario Front, Mohammed VI articulated the repressive turn in his November 2009 warning that “there is no more room for ambiguity or duplicity”, and “either one is a patriot or one is a traitor”.80 The stronger Moroccan grip resulted in significant internal crises with international reverberations such as those provoked by the expulsion and hunger strike of the Sahrawi activist Aminatou Haidar in November 2009, and the violent dismantling of the Sahrawi protest camp established in Gdeim Izik near Laayoune in October-November 2010 – following the largest protest cycle ever witnessed inside the Moroccan-annexed territory. Besides tarnishing the credibility of the Moroccan Autonomy Plan, these events reinforced the call to add human rights monitoring to MINURSO’s mandate, which in turn led to two major, interrelated Moroccan foreign policy crises with the UN and the US (Barack Obama administration): Rabat’s withdrawal of confidence from the UN Secretary General’s personal envoy Christopher Ross, following hints of increased UN concern with the human rights situation in Western Sahara in the spring of 2012; and the unforeseen US penning of a draft UN Security Council resolution that would have consummated the feared human rights empowerment of MINURSO if the total mobilisation of Morocco and some of its allies had not narrowly averted it in April 2013.81

Subsequently, in February 2016, the first judicial outcomes of the Polisario Front’s “low politics” strategy concerning natural resources, i.e. CJEU rulings on the EU-Morocco agricultural trade agreement, led Morocco to suspend all official contacts with the EU institutions for no less than three years (see below). This was coupled with an open high-level threat, for the first time ever, to reduce Rabat’s contribution to Europe’s externalised migration and border control: “How do you [Europeans] want us to do the job of blocking African emigration if Europe does not want to work with us today? Why are we going to continue to act as gendarmes?”, said the Agriculture Minister and king’s strongman.82 In the same context, by contrast, Morocco invested much of its diplomatic energy in the endeavour to join the African Union, as eventually achieved in January 2017, putting an end to over three decades of absence from pan-African regionalism.83 Alongside its new regional power aspirations, Rabat’s main motivation was the aim of neutralising the continental organisation’s vital diplomatic backing for the SADR, if not the latter’s very membership thereof. On the other hand, in addition to the aforementioned troubles with Western allies, Morocco’s post-2009 foreign policy also included diplomatic incidents or crises with countries such as Venezuela (January 2009), Iran (March 2009, May 2018), Libya (September 2009) and Sweden (November 2009, September 2015), whose common denominator was the willingness to draw a red line with regard to Western Sahara.

The new assertive and at times confrontational tenor of Moroccan foreign policy on Western Sahara would further heighten in the early 2020s. This attitude stemmed from an unprecedented self-perception of strength at the international, regional and domestic levels between 2019 and 2020. Rabat seemed to be benefiting from a tailwind in the UN because of the creeping advance of its positions in terms of the Security Council resolutions on Western Sahara, the anomalously long vacancy of the post of personal envoy of the Secretary-General for this conflict following Horst Köhler’s resignation in May 2019, and the end of the dynamism of the Geneva process associated with the “Bolton effect” in September of the same year. Altogether, the ousting of US National Security Advisor John Bolton – who had exhibited an unusual personal investment in the Western Sahara issue and was viewed by Morocco as a direct enemy – and the reconciliation with the EU after the 2016-19 bilateral crisis meant that both Washington and Brussels were considered to be largely on Rabat’s side. Regionally, Morocco’s success in joining the African Union – though not in getting the SADR expelled – coincided with a severe decrease in Algeria’s rival influence, impaired by the large-scale domestic unrest caused by the Hirak protest movement in that country. Last but not least, between December 2019 and December 2020 there was a wave of openings of 16 African and two Arab consulates in the cities of Laayoune and Dakhla, in the annexed Western Sahara territory, where international diplomatic presence had thus far been totally absent. This put an end to the longstanding international consensus on the formal non-recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty claims.84

Such an extraordinary conjunction of diplomatic advantages and achievements explains not only Rabat’s carefree resort to military force during the Guerguerat crisis, but also its miscalculation of the snowball effect of Trump’s recognition proclamation. As a result, the tide turned again from early 2021. Morocco went back on the defensive in the face of the new Joe Biden administration’s ambiguity on the aforementioned recognition, which was neither rescinded nor overtly implemented, as well as the Western European countries’ reluctance to jump on the bandwagon. Major bilateral diplomatic crises with Germany, Spain and France ensued (see below), raising the question of whether Rabat’s confrontational approach was rooted in strength, vulnerability, or a mix of both.

The Confluence of Algeria’s Principles and Interests

As argued above, the Western Sahara conflict is the main issue that crystallised the geopolitical rivalry between Algeria and Morocco in the Maghreb, and is both a consequence and a cause of the clash of both countries’ post-colonial political identities and interests. For Algeria, this is an issue on which self-interest-based and normative motivations have historically converged. The former include geopolitical aspirations, such as curbing Morocco’s territorial irredentism or securing access to the Atlantic Ocean through a friendly or subordinate state. More importantly, both the defence of borders inherited from the colonial period and support for the right to self-determination and national liberation movements lie at the heart of the national political culture that resulted from the traumatic and bloody liberation war against France (1954-62). This approach immediately collided with Moroccan irredentism, i.e. the idea that Morocco’s independence was incomplete because the country had been denied the historical borders of its prior empire. The two narratives led to armed confrontation during the 1963 Sand War.85

Yet, regarding Western Sahara, until the Green March in 1975 Algeria had not taken a clear position concerning the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, nor had it supported the Polisario Front, which had been created in 1973 with Libyan backing.86 Algeria’s main objective at the time was to simply get Morocco to ratify the bilateral border demarcation agreement concluded in 1972. But the Green March and the partition of Western Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania were both perceived by Algeria’s President Houari Boumédiène as deliberate attempts to illegitimately redraw the map of North Africa. These events led to the rupture of diplomatic relations with Rabat between 1976 and 1988. Back then, Algiers also started to actively support the Polisario Front, allowing part of the Sahrawi population to seek refuge and establish the SADR’s operational headquarters in Tindouf. The logistical and humanitarian backing was accompanied by an authorisation for the Polisario Front to use Algerian territory as a rearguard in armed attacks on Western Sahara, Morocco and Mauritania. Simultaneously, the Algerian diplomacy played a vital role in advancing the international positioning of the SADR, e.g. with the latter’s admission to the OAU in 1984.

In terms of official position and as a matter of principle, Algeria considers the Western Sahara conflict a decolonisation issue. It therefore regularly calls for the UN to effectively guarantee the self-determination of the territory, while rejecting Moroccan attempts to shift the conflict resolution process towards bilateral negotiations between Rabat and Algiers.87 While supporting UN peacemaking initiatives since the 1990s, Algeria has never stopped backing the Polisario Front and its claims for the territory’s self-determination, opposing Moroccan attempts to impose an autonomy solution. At the same time, domestically, this protection does not have the same level of popular appeal among the Algerian population as solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Based on a deep suspicion towards Morocco, the Western Sahara issue has been primarily a political tool used by the Algerian army and security services to maintain their influence over the regime.88 Algerian support for the Polisario Front/SADR has been very stable throughout the years, yet somewhat decreasing in intensity in periods of domestic economic or political difficulty. This occurred, for instance, at the time of the sharp drop in hydrocarbon prices in the 1980s and the Algerian civil war in the 1990s. No official data are available on this matter, but some (critical) sources estimate that, altogether, the Polisario Front/SADR costs the Algerian state around one billion dollars per year.89 Politically, Western Sahara has remained one of the key elements that hinder the normalisation of diplomatic relations with neighbouring Morocco.

More recently, since Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected President in December 2019, he has been seeking to revitalise Algeria’s diplomacy as a domestic legitimisation strategy. In this context, the Western Sahara issue helps to reinforce one of the normative and identity hallmarks of Algerian foreign policy, i.e. support for “just causes”. However, this does not necessarily translate into providing greater support to the Polisario Front on the ground. Indeed, despite endorsing the Polisario Front’s decision to abandon the ceasefire in November 2020, Algeria has not supplied it with any additional military equipment. On the other hand, Algeria’s leadership considers that Morocco took advantage of its international inactivity during President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s last mandates as well as the domestic turbulences of the Hirak in 2019.

Against this backdrop, the bilateral rivalry escalated up to the breakdown of diplomatic ties in the summer of 2021.90 The trigger for the Algerian decision was the consideration that Morocco had crossed a red line and interfered in the country’s domestic affairs by publicly supporting the Kabyle people’s right to self-determination. The Algerian authorities made public a list of grievances ranging from the victims of the Sand War to bilateral border demarcation to the Western Sahara conflict.91 The trilateral US-Morocco-Israel deal of December 2020 had certainly fuelled the bilateral tension between Rabat and Algiers. The latter considered that Morocco’s joining of the Abraham Accords and reinforced security cooperation with Israel were bringing the “Zionist enemy” much closer to its borders. The escalation of bilateral tension was apparent in both countries’ flaunting of their military power by creating new military regions in border areas, organising manoeuvres or just increasing the budget for the acquisition of military equipment. The Moroccan-Algerian rivalry has also reached regional organisations such as the African Union, where, since Rabat’s accession in 2017, Algiers has opposed Moroccan attempts to keep the Peace and Security Council away from the Western Sahara dossier as well as to grant observer status to Israel.

Fig. 3.1 - Military expenditure in Algeria and Morocco
in constant (2021) US$ million, 1999-2022

Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (https://milex.sipri.org/sipri)

Fig. 3.2 - Military expenditure in Algeria and Morocco
as percentage of GDP, 1999-2022

Source: SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (https://milex.sipri.org/sipri)

Besides the rupture with Morocco, the importance that the Algerian regime continues to attach to the Western Sahara issue was recently reflected in its decision, taken in June 2022, to suspend the country’s 2002 Treaty of Amity, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation with Spain.92 This measure came in response to a shift in Madrid’s longstanding formal position of “positive neutrality”93 on Western Sahara – which was, in turn, an attempt by the Pedro Sánchez government to restore relations with Rabat. In order to settle a prior year-long Moroccan-Spanish crisis, in a letter to Mohammed VI, the Spanish Prime Minister described the Moroccan Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara as “the most serious, credible and realistic basis for the resolution of this dispute”,94 which did not sit well with Algeria.

Regional Spill-Over to Tunisia and Mauritania

At the same time, the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco has also spilled over and deepened the competition between the two countries in the wider Maghreb region, reactivating a logic of axes that already existed during the 1980s – when Algeria signed the 1983 Treaty of Fraternity and Concord with Tunisia and Mauritania, and in response, Morocco concluded the Oujda Treaty with Libya one year later. In a new iteration of historical polarisation dynamics, a diplomatic crisis broke out in August 2022 between Morocco and Tunisia. Just days after Mohammed VI asserted that Western Sahara is “the lens through which Morocco looks at its international environment”, the Polisario Front’s Secretary-General and SADR President Brahim Ghali was officially invited and received in Tunisia on the occasion of the 8th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). Rabat cancelled its participation in the conference and recalled its ambassador in Tunisia for consultations, leading the latter country to respond in kind. Morocco interpreted Tunisia’s decision to receive Ghali as a head of state despite not recognising the SADR – as well as its prior abstention at the UN Security Council vote on Western Sahara in October 2021 – as a consequence of Algeria’s decisive influence on President Kais Saied.95 This pressure came at a time when Tunisia was facing the utmost economic and political fragility. Being internationally and regionally isolated, the Tunisian President relied on Algeria to cover two-thirds of his country’s gas consumption, to control 1,200km of common borders and, above all, to receive economic and financial assistance. This support was particularly important as Tunisia pursued negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unlock access to new international financing in a context of deteriorating socio-economic conditions, due in part to the war in Ukraine.

The same logic of competing and zero-sum regional alignments has affected Mauritania, a country that both Algeria and Morocco are keen to strengthen relations with. With the three-day visit of Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheik El Ghazouni in December 2021, Algeria aimed to revitalise bilateral trade relations. This was achieved through the signing of a cross-border free trade agreement and the launch of a project to improve connections with a road linking the cities of Tindouf in western Algeria and Zouerate in northern Mauritania.96 For Morocco, maintaining and improving the land (road) connection with Mauritania that was re-established after the 2020 Guerguerat crisis is crucial for expanding its trade relations with the rest of Africa and ensuring its position in the Western Sahara conflict.

Repercussions on the Maghreb’s Relations with the EU and EU Member States

After decades of deliberate non-involvement and a backseat role in this issue,97 the EU has seen the Western Sahara conflict gain prominence in its foreign policy agenda since the 2010s as a result of the Sahrawis’ new “low politics” international strategy. At the parliamentary level, this resulted in the European Parliament’s rejection, in December 2011, of the protocol of extension of the 2006 EU-Morocco fisheries agreement because of its legally problematic inclusion of the waters adjacent to Western Sahara, among other reasons. More consequentially, Morocco’s exploitation of and trading in Western Sahara’s natural resources have been called into question by the Polisario Front before the CJEU, via one of the legal routes opened by Sahrawi diplomacy since 2005 and with greater intensity since 2012. The various judgments and orders adopted by the CJEU’s General Court (2015, 2021) and Grand Chamber (2016, 2018) show the inner contradictions between the EU’s legal and regulatory framework, on the one hand, and its geopolitical, economic and commercial interests, on the other. This is also reflected in the tensions between the implementation of the CJEU judicial rulings and the related decisions of the Council, supported by the Commission and some member states.98

Tab. 3.1 - Judgements and orders of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) on EU-Morocco agreements

Source: EUR-Lex (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/); authors’ own elaboration99

Overall, the main legal conclusions that the EU’s executive institutions must face and implement after the various CJEU rulings are the explicit recognition that Western Sahara is not part of the territory of Morocco, that the Polisario Front remains the legal representative of the Sahrawi people and therefore its interlocutor, and that neither products nor natural resources originating from this territory can be included in the EU-Morocco cooperation agreements without the explicit and prior consent of the Sahrawi people. This clashes directly with Morocco’s consideration of its self-styled “national territorial integrity” as a non-negotiable red line, and led indeed to a first-time diplomatic crisis between Rabat and Brussels from 2016 to 2019 (see Table 3.1 above).

A first tangible outcome of these legal challenges has been the withdrawal of EU vessels from the waters of Morocco and Western Sahara following the expiration the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement in July 2023 and the European Commission’s reluctance to negotiate a renewal protocol as long as there is no final judgment from the CJEU on this matter.100 Such uncertainty in the second half of 2023 also coincides with the time when the presidency of the Council of the EU is held by Spain, the country with the highest number of vessels with permits to fish under this framework101 – and which experienced a serious bilateral crisis with Morocco from 2021 to 2022.

Also recently, beyond these legal challenges, the issue of the utilisation and exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources has given rise to new competing foreign policy narratives around the 2020 European Green Deal. Morocco has endeavoured to build a “green diplomacy” based on the development of green and renewable energies with which it aims to supply the country itself and become a key exporter to Europe and other African countries.102 The counter-narrative of the Polisario Front claims that the Moroccan strategy hides geopolitical and economic interests and, above all, that it does not meet the minimum requirements set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and European policies. In other words, Morocco is being accused of “greenwashing”. While the new focus of Morocco’s development strategy is renewable and green energies, some of the existing or planned solar and wind power plants are located in the territory of Western Sahara, which means that the consent of the Sahrawi people is needed for their lawful management and exploitation.103 More generally, the EU is also criticised for prioritising relations with Morocco at the expense of not respecting the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people, for its interests relating to migration control, the fight against terrorism and the energy transition, which Morocco is supposed to guarantee.

On a different note, at the EU member state level, the main implications of the growing salience of the Western Sahara conflict have been a series of bilateral crises with Morocco, as well as some more indirect tensions with Algeria. The first country to go through a crisis with Morocco was Sweden in 2015, at a time when the possibility of recognising the SADR as a state was being discussed in Stockholm’s parliament. Morocco perceived those internal debates as a serious threat, and responded with a series of diplomatic and economic actions that included calling off the opening of the first Ikea store in the country. Bilateral relations did not normalise until the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs issued a formal statement announcing that the SADR issue was to be taken off the country’s political agenda.104

Five years later, the US presidential proclamation of December 2020 recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara led Rabat to provoke two parallel bilateral crises with Germany and Spain, with the aim of pushing these countries to align their positions on the conflict with that of Washington. Rabat suspended contacts with the German embassy in the country in March 2021, and escalated the crisis to a recall of its ambassador for consultations two months later, accusing Berlin of “hostile acts” and chiefly a “negative attitude on the Moroccan Sahara issue”.105 Germany had been the only member of the UN Security Council to demand a closed-door session to discuss the collapse of the ceasefire in Western Sahara, which eventually took place in December 2020.106 Other additional reasons given by Rabat were that Berlin had not invited Morocco to an international summit on Libya it hosted in January 2020, in which Algeria did participate, and that it refused to arrest or extradite Mohamed Hajib, a Moroccan activist based in the country. However, tensions came to an end following Olaf Scholz’s accession to the German Chancellery in December 2021, when his government nuanced Berlin’s position on Western Sahara and commended the Moroccan Autonomy Plan as an “important contribution” to end the conflict.107

In the case of Spain, the bilateral crisis with Morocco was overt from May 2021 to March 2022, and was compounded with tensions over migration and territorial issues, including Ceuta and Melilla. The short-term trigger and pretext was the hospitalisation in Spain of the Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali to receive medical treatment for Covid-19. Morocco objected that Ghali was being investigated on several charges relating to human rights violations in the Tindouf refugee camps. Seizing on Madrid’s increased dependency on its southern neighbour for anti-immigration and border control purposes,108 Rabat retaliated by allowing over 9,000 migrants (mostly Moroccans) to cross the border into Ceuta in 24 hours, claiming that “there are acts that have consequences” as its ambassador to Madrid was recalled.109 The EU was swift to react to this case of blatant weaponisation of migration control on its southern borders, and the European Parliament adopted a motion rejecting Rabat’s behaviour. In any case, in order to mend its ties with Morocco, the Spanish government was forced not only to dismiss the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, in July 2021, but also to state that the Moroccan Autonomy Plan is “the most serious, credible and realistic basis” for the resolution of the Western Sahara conflict in March of the following year – a move that was mired in deep domestic controversy and jeopardised Madrid’s relations with Algiers (see above).

Finally, France’s relations with Morocco have been strained over the past two years due to a combination of President Emmanuel Macron’s policy of rapprochement with Algeria, heightened visa restrictions for Moroccans and the Western Sahara issue. Regarding the latter, despite pressure from Rabat and unlike Germany and Spain, Paris has so far been reluctant to make any declaration expressing further endorsement for the Moroccan Autonomy Plan.

The other side of the coin of these bilateral crises and reconciliations with Morocco has been the Western Sahara issue’s impact on Algeria’s relations with the EU and EU member states. Algeria’s energy supply to Europe has enjoyed a long and stable trajectory. Despite the current process of energy transition, Morocco’s supply of green and renewable energy is very far from taking away the priority place of fossil energy (gas) generated and exported by Algeria. In order to prevent the spill-over of Algeria’s bilateral tensions with Morocco over Western Sahara and other issues, some EU member states have preferred to “Europeanise” disputes.110 Such has been the approach followed by Spain since Algeria’s suspension of the bilateral Treaty of Amity in June 2022 in response to Madrid’s support for the Moroccan Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara. Algeria’s retaliatory measures included withdrawing its diplomatic corps from Madrid, freezing trade activities and decreasing cooperation on migration and security issues. The only elements left unchanged, in principle, were the volume and conditions of its gas sales to Spain. Algeria intended, on the one hand, not to break a contract and thus lose reliability vis-à-vis Europe, and on the other hand, to maintain foreign currency income in a political and economic context of domestic and international tension.

Algeria is Europe’s third largest supplier after Russia and Norway.111 Hence, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both the EU Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, visited Algeria at different times with the aim of discussing the EU-Algeria Strategic Energy Partnership in place since 2015.112 In the meantime, Italy has been able to fill the gap left by Algeria’s crisis with Spain and improve gas supplies from this country. The question for experts and policymakers is whether Algeria will be able to improve its production so as to increase its exports to Europe in order to meet growing demand.113

A Less and Less Forgotten Conflict

A protracted decolonisation and territorial-sovereignty conflict with a significant regional dimension, the dispute over Western Sahara remains both a consequence and a cause of Moroccan-Algerian rivalry and the broader lack of integration in the Maghreb. For Morocco, “national territorial integrity” has invariably featured as the superior priority and cross-cutting issue determining all foreign policy behaviour. Yet, the strain this puts on Rabat’s relations with its traditional international partners, especially in the West, has substantially increased in two steps since the past decade: as a consequence of the effects of the Polisario Front’s “low politics” international strategy that has politicised Morocco’s human rights violations and economic exploitation of the natural resources of the territory, and in the wake of the US unilateral recognition of Moroccan sovereignty thereon, in parallel to the resumption of hostilities in late 2020. In the case of Algeria, the unwavering support for the Polisario Front and Sahrawi self-determination constitutes a deep-seated principled stance, and at the same time one that is strategically mobilised as a means to pursue self-interest-based goals relating to the bilateral geopolitical competition with Morocco, as well as domestic power struggles. Algiers’ decision to break off diplomatic relations with Rabat in the summer of 2021 demonstrates the extent to which normative-identity and strategic motivations are inextricably interwoven.

Furthermore, other countries in the Maghreb such as Tunisia and Mauritania have been subject to the spill-over of Western Sahara-related and Moroccan-Algerian tensions, which have embroiled them in fluid, zero-sum regional alignments. When it comes to the Maghreb’s relations with the EU, the Western Sahara conflict has entangled them in two main ways: directly, through the parliamentary and especially judicial (CJEU) route taken by the Polisario Front in order to challenge the territorial undifferentiation and inclusion of Western Sahara in all the bilateral EU-Morocco deals; and indirectly, through the related bilateral crises that various EU member states have faced with Morocco (Sweden, Germany, Spain, France), as well as Algeria (Spain).

61 S. Zunes and J. Mundy, Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution (2nd ed.), New York, Syracuse University Press, 2022, p. 25.

62 See “Western Sahara. Casualties”, MONITOR Landmine and Cluster Munition, 21 October 2018.

63 A. Theofilopoulou, “Western Sahara: The Failure of ‘Negotiations without Preconditions’”, United States Institute of Peace, Washington D.C., 2010.

64 M.J. Stephan and J. Mundy, “A Battlefield Transformed: From Guerrilla Resistance to Mass Nonviolent Struggle in the Western Sahara”, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1-32; I. Fernández-Molina, “Protests under Occupation: The Spring Inside Western Sahara”, Mediterranean Politics, vol. 20, no. 2, 2015, pp. 235-54. I. Fernández-Molina, “Bottom-up Change in Frozen Conflicts: Transnational Struggles and Mechanisms of Recognition in Western Sahara”, Review of International Studies, vol. 45, no. 3, 2019, pp. 407-30.

65 “Time for International Re-engagement in Western Sahara”, International Crisis Group (ICG), 2021.

66 Military agreement No. 1 was an agreement concluded in 1997-98 between MINURSO and each of the two conflict parties to specify the rules for the ceasefire. It divides Western Sahara into five areas: a five-kilometre-wide buffer strip east of the berm, two restricted areas west of the berm and two areas of limited restriction in the remainder of the territory. See https://minurso.unmissions.org/ceasefire-monitoring.

67 United Nations Security Council, “Situation Concerning Western Sahara: Report of the Secretary-General”, S/2021/843, 1 October 2021, pp. 1-3.

68 United Nations Security Council, “Situation Concerning Western Sahara: Report of the Secretary-General”, S/2022/733, 3 October 2022, pp. 1, 9.

69 White House, “Proclamation on Recognizing the Sovereignty of the Kingdom of Morocco over the Western Sahara”, 10 December 2020.

70 Morocco’s domestic discontent with the normalisation with Israel was kept under control for nearly three years, yet it rocketed in the context of the Israel-Gaza war starting in October 2023. Rallies in solidarity with the Palestinians then brought together tens of thousands of protesters across many Moroccan cities, convened by networks that included left-wing and Islamist parties, unions and associations, and uttering chants such as “The people want the end of normalisation”.

71 “Communiqué du Cabinet Royal”, Maghreb Arabe Press, 17 July 2013.

72 See Y.H. Zoubir, “Algerian-Moroccan Relations and their Impact on Maghribi Integration”, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 5, no. 3, 2000, pp. 43-74. K. Mohsen-Finan, Sahara Occidental. Les enjeux d’un conflit régional, Paris, CNRS Éditions, ١٩٩٧.

73 Mohammed VI, “Discours de SM le Roi adressé à la nation à l’occasion du 39ème anniversaire de la Marche Verte”, Maroc.ma, 6 November 2014.

74 R. Ojeda-García, I. Fernández-Molina, and Victoria Veguilla (eds.) Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

75 Mohammed VI, “SM le Roi Mohammed VI adresse un discours à la Nation à l’occasion du 69ème anniversaire de la Révolution du Roi et du Peuple”, Maroc.ma, 20 August 2022.

76 I.W. Zartman, “Morocco’s Saharan Policy”, in A. Boukhars and J. Roussellier (eds.), Perspectives on Western Sahara: Myths, Nationalisms, and Geopolitics, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013, p. 55. See M. Hernando de Larramendi, La política exterior de Marruecos, Madrid, Mapfre, 1997; R. El Houdaïgui, La politique étrangère sous le règne de Hassan II Acteurs, enjeux et processus décisionnels, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2003.

77 I. Fernández-Molina, Moroccan Foreign Policy under Mohammed VI, 1999-2014, Oxon-New York, Routledge, 2016, pp. 47-73.

78 N. Messari, “National Security, the Political Space, and Citizenship: The Case of Morocco and the Western Sahara”, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 2001, pp. 47-63.

79 H. Bouqentar, “La politique étrangère marocaine: un changement dans la continuité”, in Centre d’Études Internationales (ed.), Une décennie de réformes au Maroc (1999-2009), Paris, Karthala, 2010, pp. 328-31.

80 Mohammed VI, “Discours de SM le Roi à la Nation à l’occasion du 34ème anniversaire de la Marche Verte”, Maroc.ma, 6 November 2009.

81 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et de la Coopération/Royaume du Maroc, “Note à Monsieur le Ministre”, 2 October 2014, leaked document.

82 J. Otazu, “Marruecos advierte a la UE de las consecuencias si no habla con una sola voz”, La Vanguardia, 6 February 2017.

83 M. Hernando de Larramendi and B. Tomé-Alonso, “The Return of Morocco to the African Union”, in IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2017, Barcelona, IEMed, 2017, pp. 229-332.

84 Since the summer of 2022, the list of states that have opened consulates in either Laayoune or Dakhla comprises 27 countries, including 21 from Africa (Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Malawi, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Zambia), 3 from Latin America (Guatemala, Haiti, Suriname) and three from the Arab Middle East (Bahrain, Jordan, United Arab Emirates).

85 A. Torres, La Guerra de las Arenas: Conflicto entre Argelia y Marruecos durante la Guerra Fría (1963), Barcelona, Bellaterra, 2012.

86 M. Salem Abdi, “El rol de Argelia en la cuestión del Sahara Occidental”, Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos, no. 31, 2021, pp. 195-96.

87 S. Lagdaf and N. Flici, “Algeria and the Conflict in Western Sahara”, in Y.H. Zoubir (ed.), The Politics of Algeria: Domestic Issues and International Relations, Oxon-New York, Routledge, 2020, pp. 251-65.

88 L. Thieux, “Algerian Foreign Policy towards Western Sahara”, in R. Ojeda-García, I. Fernández-Molina, and V. Veguilla (eds.), Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 121-41.

89 “Exclusif: Ce que Réellement Coûte la République Sahraouie au Trésor Public Algérien”, Algérie Part, 21 February 2022.

90 “Graves dérives du Makhzen et rupture entre Alger et Rabat en 2021”, Algérie Presse Service, 30 December 2021.

91 “Déclaration de Lamamra sur la rupture des relations diplomatiques avec le Maroc”, Algérie Presse Service, 24 August 2021.

92 “L’Algérie suspend le Traité d’amitié, de bon voisinage et de coopération avec l’Espagne”, Algérie Presse Service, 8 June 2022.

93 “Positive neutrality”, or interchangeably “active neutrality”, is a phrase used in Spain’s diplomatic parlance since the country’s democratic transition and withdrawal from Western Sahara, though largely as an empty signifier devoid of specific content which has been over time adapted to this conflict’ changing context.

94 M. González, “La carta de Pedro Sánchez a Mohamed VI: ‘Debemos construir una nueva relación que evite futuras crisis’”, El País, 23 March 2022.

95 M. Hernando de Larramendi and L. Thieux, “La rivalité algéro-marocaine dans un contexte de transformation”, Afkar-Idées, no. 67, 2022.

96 “Algérie-Mauritanie: ratification du protocole exécutif relatif au projet de la route Tindouf-Zouerate”, Algérie Presse Service, 15 February 2023.

97 J. Vaquer, “The European Union and Western Sahara”, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 9, no. 1, 2004, pp. 93-113; K. Benabdallah, “The Position of the European Union on the Western Sahara Conflict”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol. 17, no. 3, 2009, pp. 417-35.

98 A. Suárez-Collado and D. Contini, “The European Court of Justice on the EU-Morocco Agricultural and Fisheries Agreements: An Analysis of the Legal Proceedings and Consequences for the Actors Involved”, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 27, no. 7, 2022, pp. 1160-1179.

99 The authors would like to thank Alejandro del Valle Gálvez for his double-check and feedback on this table’s data.

100 J.C. Sanz, “La flota pesquera se retira de Marruecos tras la sentencia europea sobre el Sáhara”, El País, 17 July 2023.

101 H. Lovatt and J. Mundy, “Free to Choose: A New Plan For Peace In Western Sahara”, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), 26 May 2021.

102 K.E. Nicolai, “A Green Gambit: The Development of Environmental Foreign Policy in Morocco”, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 27, no. 4, 2022, pp. 714-40.

103 “Greenwashing Occupation”, Western Sahara Resource Watch, 6 October 2021.

104 N. Messari, “Moroccan Foreign Policy Under Mohammed VI: Balancing Diversity and Respect”, Istituto Affari Internazionali, 28 October 2020.

105 Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, de la Coopération Africaine et des Marocains Résidant à l’Étranger/Royaume du Maroc, “Le Maroc rappelle l’Ambassadeur de Sa Majesté le Roi à Berlin pour consultations”, 6 May 2021.

106 “Relaunching Negotiations over Western Sahara”, International Crisis Group (ICG), 14 October 2021.

107 M. Al-Fawiris, “The EU and the Diplomatic Dilemma in the Maghreb”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 28 July 2022.

108 I. Fernández-Molina and M. Hernando de Larramendi, “Migration Diplomacy in a De Facto Destination Country: Morocco’s New Intermestic Migration Policy and International Socialization by/with the EU”, Mediterranean Politics, vol. 27, no. 2, 2022, pp. 212-35.

109 “Embajadora de Marruecos: ‘Hay actos que tienen consecuencias y se tienen que asumir’”, Europa Press, 18 May 2021.

110 B. Tomé and A. Casani, “Marruecos hoy, relaciones con España y Argelia”, Fundación Alternativas, 2023.

111 M.J. Willis, Algeria: Politics and Society from the Dark Decade to the Hirak, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, p. 374.

112 A. Sözen, N. Goren, and C. Limon (eds.), “Conflict Resolution in the Mediterranean: Energy as a Potential Game-Changer”, Diplomeds, 2023, p. 60.

113 M. Ouki, “Algerian Gas in Transition: Domestic Transformation and Changing Gas Export Potential”, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 2019.

4. How The “Failure of Maghreb” Reverberates in Libya

Aldo Liga

The whole Maghreb has been highly impacted by the instability stemming from Libya. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have been significantly affected by the transformations that followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, the intermittent civil wars, the persistence of internal fractures, and the deep security and economic implications that the Libyan chaos has spread across the entire North Africa and the Sahel region. Indeed, the deterioration of the security situation has transcended the porous borders of the country.1

Over the last decade, the Libyan crisis has also contributed to shape the domestic and foreign policies of the Maghreb states, their regional stance and ambitions. The three countries have been affected by the implications of the Libyan chaos in different ways according to their pre-existing interlinkages with Tripoli, their proximity to the Libyan border, and their different degrees of vulnerability to the regional spillover of the crisis.

However, the three countries have played a limited political and diplomatic role in the crisis. This is also due to the historical dynamics of competition, disunion and rivalry, which have characterised the region for almost 50 years and now seem to have reached a new peak2: in this extent, the “failure of Maghreb”3 has reverberated in Libya.

A Limited Political Role

After a decade that has seen a succession of parallel executives and multiple conflicts, ceasefires and aborted attempts to reunify the country’s institutions, the Libyan political crisis is once again mired in a stand-off.4 In this complex context of political fragmentation and competition between different centres of power, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia repeatedly stated that they do not pursue a “national agenda” in Libya. They sponsor a political “Libyan” solution and are committed to preserve the sovereignty and territorial unity, rejecting foreign interventions and interferences. After the outbreak of the second civil war in 2014 (which followed the transitional phase begun with the end of the Gaddafi regime), the three states have claimed their equidistance from the different competing powers and, at least officially, leaned towards the authorities based in the west of the country and recognised by the United Nations (UN), the Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Faiez al-Serraj, from 2016 to 2021 and the Government of National Union (GNU), installed in 2021 and headed by Abdulhamid Dabaiba. This has not precluded dialogue with the east-based military strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar or his envoys and representatives of Eastern authorities.

Despite the official stances, the role that Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have played in the crisis is quite limited. Indeed, Maghreb nations have not exerted considerable sway in Libya compared to the main foreign interferers, which played an active role on the ground, supporting one faction to the detriment of another.5 Indeed, while the Libyan crisis has played a significant role in defining the foreign policy agenda of the three countries, their room for manoeuvre, their ability to build a structured and pro-active strategy – a pragmatic approach with a tangible impact – have so far progressively faded since the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.6

This limited political leverage is also corroborated by poor economic relations (at least in formal terms). The only Maghrebi country enjoying a minimum trade exchange with Libya is Tunisia, with an official bilateral trade of US$659 million in 2019, well below the total amount exchanged by Libya with Italy, China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, France or Egypt.7 Limited trade relations are also a byproduct of the significant loss of economic potential and drop in productive sectors, following the outbreak of the war.

The “non-Maghreb” is one of the factors behind this limited political leverage and economic cooperation. Despite the repercussions of the Libyan crisis and the long-lasting perceptions of threats looming over the whole region, disunion and competition among Maghrebi actors have prevailed over the quest for coordinated action to advocate a Maghrebi voice for the settlement of the crisis and the need for a shared response to common challenges. Furthermore, even though the whole Maghreb pays a price for the instability and violence in the country, the Libyan crisis represents an additional arena for regional rivalries, zero-sum games and leveraging regional and international credibility.

Attempts to explore and decrypt how the Libyan crisis interacts with the “non-Maghreb”, and the repercussions of the “non-Maghreb” on the Libyan crisis require an analysis of the respective Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian policies towards Libya: how has the decade-long instability in the country affected internal political dynamics, domestic interests, regional projections and foreign policies of the Maghreb countries? How have the intra-regional competition and rivalries “overflowed” onto the Libyan crisis?

Understanding the “Neutrality” of Moroccan “Active Neutrality”

Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Rabat has pursued an approach of “active neutrality”8 towards the Libyan crisis and the parties to the conflict. Morocco has presented itself as an impartial facilitator of dialogue and “settler of the scene” during both UN-brokered peace process and intra-Libyan dialogue. Rabat has also seen an opportunity to rebuild its historically complex ties with the country. Notwithstanding some episodes of convergence (such as the signing of the Oujda Treaty, also known as the Arabic-African Federation Treaty, in 1984), Gaddafi publicly contested the Moroccan monarchy, denouncing the ties between the King and the West and his decision to provide refuge to Libyan dissidents. Most importantly, the Libyan leader was one of the financial supporters of the Polisario Front (the nationalist movement that fights for the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people and contests Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara region) and strongly sponsored the independence of this territory.9

During the 2011 revolution, Rabat recognised the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) before the end of the “Battle of Tripoli” between rebel fighters and pro-Gaddafi forces for the control of the capital and was one of the first countries to send its Foreign Minister to Benghazi to express support for the new regime in August 2011.10

With the situation in Libya rapidly deteriorating, and the second civil war erupting in 2014, Rabat made the facilitation of the inter-Libyan dialogue the cornerstone of its policy towards the country. With this strategy, the Moroccan monarchy aimed at advancing wider foreign policy goals: the promotion of its international standing, its role as a regional security provider, its alignment with the UN and the European Union (EU), and the will to put itself in a better position to benefit from the country’s political and economic transformation.11

Morocco played the role of facilitator of dialogue on three different occasions. In 2015, it hosted the negotiations which resulted in the signing of the Skhirat Agreement. The “Libyan Political Agreement” led to the establishment of the GNA,12 which remained in place in Tripoli until the beginning of 2021. Although the agreement failed to pacify the country and to lay the ground for its institutional reconstruction, Moroccan diplomacy has always praised it as the only process to have resulted into an agreement which gave internationally recognised institutions to the country for almost five years. Another attempt by Moroccan diplomacy to play a role in the Libyan conflict took place immediately after the August 2020 ceasefire agreement, which followed Haftar’s offensive to seize Tripoli started in April 2019. Between September 2020 and 2022, the country hosted new rounds of intra-Libyan dialogues, such as those of Buznika and Tangiers on the unification of state institutions and on mechanisms and criteria to select candidates for state sovereign positions.13 The latest attempt dates to Spring 2023, when the High Council of State (based in Tripoli) and the House of Representatives (based in Tobruk) agreed to form a “6+6 Joint Committee”14 tasked with drafting election laws. The Moroccan city of Buznika hosted the final rounds of the negotiation process. In June, the Commission claimed to have reached consensus on the draft laws. The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, gave proof of realism declaring that “the text of the agreement, whatever it is, if it is not accompanied by political will, remains a text. Without the political will, we fear that the agreement will be added to other agreements that have not been implemented on the ground”.15

All these efforts of mediation and facilitation of dialogue are officially presented as demonstrations of the Moroccan “active neutrality” in easing a political “Libyan” solution to the crisis.16 Rabat has always insisted on the necessity of an exclusively Libyan process to settling the conflict. However, there is no escaping the fact that promoting a dialogue centred on, for instance, the formation of new institutions and the selection of new sovereign-state positions, poses a challenge to the current status quo in the country and, above all, to the political personalities currently in power, thereby stretching the meaning of “active neutrality”. In addition to this, according to some analysts, Morocco was one of the backers of the alliance between Fathi Bashagha, Khalifa Haftar and Aguila Saleh, the speaker of the House of Representatives, which led to the formation of a rival to the GNU, in the form of the Government of National Stability (GNS), headed by Bashagha from March 2022 to May 2023.17

Another key to understanding Moroccan role in the Libyan crisis is the tension between Rabat and Algiers: Moroccan efforts to facilitate a political solution in Libya have also interacted with the historical dynamics of competition with Algiers. Ten years ago, Rabat saw the end of the Libyan regime as a new opportunity to increase its regional leadership, during a time when Algeria’s diplomacy has been in a state of “semi-lethargy”18, weakened by the fragile health conditions of the President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who suffered a stroke in 2013, and by the internal economic challenges stemming from the decline in oil prices at the time. Morocco and Algeria have promoted alternative frameworks of dialogue19 and their respective national interests have prevailed. The mediation efforts led by Morocco could also be partly read as an attempt to prevent any Libyan scenario that might strengthen Algerian interests,20 thus confirming the zero-sum mentality guiding the country’s decision-making processes and diplomatic activism.21

One of the main arguments that Morocco advances to legitimise its role as a facilitator in Libya is the fact that the country – in contrast to Algeria – does not share a border with Libya and is therefore less susceptible to pursuing its national interests. After the resignation of Ghassan Salamé in March 2020, Morocco actively worked to thwart the possible appointment of Ramtane Lamamra, former Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, as UN Special Envoy for Libya.22 Two years later, the candidacy of another Algerian former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sabri Boukadom, was rejected by UN Security Council. This was officially due to the opposition of the United Arab Emirates, one of the closest allies of Morocco and supporter of the Kingdom’s policy on the Western Sahara issue.

Today, the two competitors for regional hegemony in the Maghreb are experiencing their umpteenth diplomatic crisis since the time when Algeria decided to sever ties in August 2021. In this context, continuing to play the role of facilitator of the intra-Libyan dialogue is of the utmost importance to assert Rabat’s regional leadership and contrast Algeria. This is even more urgent due to the prominent diplomatic position acquired by Algeria following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and the following energy crisis and due to the deterioration of the relations between Morocco and Tunisia, which followed the decision of the Tunisian President, Kais Saied, to welcome the leader of the Polisario Front at the airport during the eighth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in August 2022. This move was interpreted such as a sign of the increasingly visible Algerian influence on Tunis.23

Are Algerian Internal Security Priorities the Limit or the Foundation of Its Libyan Policy?

Algeria shares an almost 1000 km border with Libya, from the tripoint area with Tunisia, in the North, to the tripoint with Niger, in the South. For this reason, security is one of the first concern of Algiers when it looks at its neighbour, with the conflict in Libya contributing to complex and multiple threats along Algeria’s eastern border. In January 2020, Algerian President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, stated that “the security of Libya is the extension of our own security”.

Algiers presents itself “as a bulwark against regional instability” and developed long-term approaches to “insulate” itself from this instability.24 Algiers has strengthened its border security, spending a significant sum of money (around US$500 million per year, according to some sources25), and deploying 30-40,000 troops, tanks, armoured vehicles, and air support. A sand wall has been built at the border between the two countries, which has been closed since May 2014.26

Terrorism has long been the main threat from the porous border with Libya. In January 2013, the In Amenas natural gas facility was the target of a terrorist attack, in which 39 foreign workers were killed. The attack was led by an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group which had entered Algeria from Libya and northern Mali. The outage of the plant contributed to a 10% drop in Algerian hydrocarbon production in the first half of 2013 and damaged the confidence of international firms about operating in the country and, consequently, the credibility of Algeria as a secure and reliable supplier of energy.27 The energy dimension represented an additional layer to the existential threat posed by instability spilling over from Libya to a country highly dependent on hydrocarbons and energy rent for its internal equilibriums, social cohesion, and foreign policy. Although many of these fears have faded over the years, such as the risks of the emergence of Libya as a rear base for armed groups and terrorist attacks or the challenges of the return of jihadi fighters, they have long influenced and fed concerns in Algiers.

Beyond security concerns, Algeria played a marginal role in the quest for a political solution of the Libyan crisis. At the beginning of the conflict, at least, this was mainly due to its opposition to the NATO intervention of 2011 (which has always been considered in Algiers as a “strategic mistake”28 due to the potential cataclysmic repercussions on the whole region29), delayed recognition of the NTC and support to Gaddafi regime, with part of the family of the former dictator exiled in Algeria. This attitude was rooted into the principles of state legitimacy and sovereignty and that of non-interference, which are among the cornerstones of the Algerian foreign policy paradigm.30

In the first decade after the fall of the regime, the country hosted some regional meetings and discussions to relaunch political dialogue and peace efforts, but without reaching the extent and “rhythm” of those promoted by Morocco. Several factors contributed to Algeria’s marginalisation: the health of Bouteflika, the difficult economic situation in the country, as well as the war in Mali, which monopolised Algerian regional activism. In addition, other factors have diminished Algeria’s influence over the Libyan question, such as the progressive erosion of its stake in the Fezzan region, resulting in a loss of influence over Tuareg groups (due to their allegiance to Haftar but also to the presence of other players, such as Qatar), and the decline of the Military Region in Ouargla, the cornerstone of Algeria’s security projection in Libya and the Sahel region, also due to corruption affairs.31 According to some analysts, this progressive erosion of the Algerian influence on the Fezzan, the necessity of dealing with internal turmoil of the Hirak movement (the movement which led to the streets thousands of citizens from February 2019) and the consequently “passive stance” of the country towards its eastern neighbour, contributed to allowing the Haftar’s offensive in the south of Libya at the beginning of 2019.32

In December 2019, the coming into power of Tebboune enabled a relaunch – at least in terms of narrative and public discourse – of Algerian diplomacy in the country. The Libyan dossier has been a priority for the new President since his inception, when he declared that since “Algeria is the first and foremost country concerned by Libya’s stability, whether one likes it or not, Algeria will never accept being excluded from the proposed solutions” to the conflict.33 In January 2020, Tebboune took a strong stance against Haftar’s offensive in Tripolitania, declaring that “Algeria regards Tripoli as a red line and expects no one to cross it”.34

The following year the Constitution was amended to allow Algiers to participate in peacekeeping operations and send army units abroad under the framework of the UN, the African Union (AU) and the Arab League, feeding speculation over a possible military intervention in Libya, although this has so far never materialised. Certainly, the changing security landscape which followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi and the ongoing destabilisation in Mali contributed to this development in the Algerian military doctrine.35

The new Algerian government has tried to reduce the country’s marginality in the Libyan dossier by hosting talks between Libya’s neighbouring countries to reach a consensus around the political process. In January 2020 Algeria was the only Maghrebi country to take part in the first Berlin Conference on Libya. The same month, Algiers conveyed foreign ministers or diplomats from Tunisia, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Mali and Niger36 and planned to organise a meeting between the main Libyan belligerents, later postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.37

One interesting aspect of Algerian involvement in the Libyan crisis has been the diplomatic “triangulation” with other Libyan neighbours, such as Tunisia, Egypt and Sahel countries. In the case of Egypt this is particularly relevant due to the different interests Algiers and Cairo have in the dossier, with Egypt’s strategy grounded in specific ideological, security and economic concerns and expressed through strong support to Khalifa Haftar since the outset of Operation Dignity in 2014. Compared to the other Maghrebi countries, relations between Algiers and Haftar, have often been tense, with Algeria banning the Field Marshal from entering the country in his military uniform (not recognising him as commander of the Libyan Armed Forces) and Haftar threatening to transfer the conflict from Libya to Algeria “within minutes”.38 However, the interest in maintaining a balance of power in North Africa, in particular counterbalancing Egypt’s influence in the Libyan crisis39, has contributed to ensuring that channels of communication are kept open.

If competition with Algeria has played a role in shaping Moroccan strategy towards Libya, a similar effect is evident also in Algiers’s attitude towards the crisis and anti-Moroccan rhetoric influenced the country’s stance in the Libyan dossier. Commenting the second round of the inter-Libyan dialogue in Bouznika in 2020, Tebboune shrugged off the whole process hosted by Morocco as a “diplomatic agitation”, an attempt to “give an aspirin to a fully metastasised body”.40

If cooperation with its western neighbour is precluded, Algeria and Tunisia have established a dialogue on Libya. Algiers and Tunis have hosted several joint initiatives and tripartite meetings (involving the Libyan counterpart) to promote an intra-Libyan solution to the crisis. The most recent were those organised in Algiers in November 202141 and in Tunis in June 2022.42

The Spectre of the Libyan Crisis Overhanging Tunisia’s Political Transition

Tunisia is one of the countries most affected by the instability that has been looming large in Libya since the beginning of the revolution. Libya represents a vital national security concern for Tunisia, due to the effects of the instability emanating from the country.

Although total numbers are difficult to come by, some estimate the number of Libyans moving to Tunisia after the outbreak of the civil war to amount to more than 1 million. This is a significant number for a local population that in 2011 was around 10 million and has now risen to 12 million.43 Another repercussion of the war has been the return of some 60,000 Tunisians working in the country, and the resulting impact in terms of lost remittances and increasing unemployment. The Libyan crisis also had other spillover effects on Tunisia’s economy, in terms of illicit informal trade movements (in particular of fuel and subsidised goods) and informal cash flow, the effect of the security deterioration on private investment and tourism and increased security spending. According to the World Bank, the Libyan crisis may have contributed to a 24% overall drop in Tunisia’s growth over the five years between 2011 and 2015.44

The breakdown of the security situation in Libya has exposed Tunisia to a wave of Jihadist violence in the past decade, with three attacks claimed by the Islamic State (IS) directly originating from Libya. In March 2015, IS terrorists trained in Libyan jihadist camps attacked the Bardo National Museum, leaving 24 dead. Three months later, in June, they targeted a beach resort near the coastal city of Sousse, on 26 June 2015, killing 28. On 7 March 2016, more than 50 IS militants – some trained at a camp near Sabratha – crossed the Libyan-Tunisian border and reached the Tunisian town of Ben Gardane, where they proclaimed an “emirate.” Moreover, Tunisia is among the countries with the highest number of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) per capita in the world: since the toppling of President Ben Ali, between 3,000 and 7,000 of its citizens have reportedly joined terrorist groups fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Libya.45

Fragmentation in Libya and the volatility of power represents an additional challenge for the Tunisian army which needs to engage with different armed groups, tribes, and smugglers to secure and control the border.46 In February 2016, the country completed the first part of a 200 km barrier along its border with Libya to deter the terrorist threat, although this measure could be considered more symbolic than practical.47 The securitisation of the Libyan-Tunisia border and its impact on informal trade also led to local grievances, in one of the most socio-economically vulnerable regions of the country.

Although over the past decade the country has suffered the political, security and economic impact of instability in its immediate neighbourhood, Tunisia has lacked the geopolitical prominence “to solicit any deep change in Libya”.48 This is also due to the fact that simultaneously Tunisia was experiencing a difficult political transition and process of institutional consolidation following the 2011 revolution. The country has tried to persuade other regional and international actors to recognise the paramount importance of Libyan stability for Tunisian prosperity and to rally support to the UN efforts to settle the conflict.49 In 2016, Tunisia was one of the first countries to reopen its embassy in Tripoli after most of the international community’s representations evacuated the country following the outbreak of the second civil war in 2014. Even today, it is the only Maghrebi state with an operational embassy in Libya.50

Tunis has undoubtedly emerged as a sort of “little Libya outside Libya”. It is a centre for formal and informal negotiations and discussions, coordination of humanitarian aid and refuge for the international community exiled from Libya. The UN Support Mission in Libya, delegations of European and multilateral institutions and foreign embassies have been established in Tunis for years. In some phases of the conflict, the Tunisian capital also emerged as the only meeting point for Libyan interlocutors from the west and east of the country, who could not meet on Libyan soil.51

In May 2017, Tunisia’s Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui, met with his Egyptian homologue, Sameh Shoukry, and the Algerian Minister for Maghreb, African and Arab League Affairs, Abdelkader Messahel, and signed the “Tunis Declaration”. This included support for a comprehensive reconciliation in the country, rejecting military solutions and external interference and a call to ensure the continuity of Libyan state institutions as stipulated by the Skhirat Agreement.52 This was the last diplomatic initiative on Libya directly led by Tunisia.53

Since Kais Saied has become President in 2019, the country has not launched any new relevant diplomatic initiative towards the Libyan crisis, although Libya was one of the first foreign destinations for a state visit by the new President. When Saied met Dabaiba, in March 2021, he became the first Tunisian Head of State to visit Libya since 2012.54

Meetings between the Tunisian and Libyan governments are now essentially focused on bilateral issues, such as the decade-long question of the US$250 million Libyan debt to Tunisia (a debt related to the medical expenditure for wounded Libyan patients during the wars) and electricity bills for periods when Tunisian electricity compensated for damage to the Libyan electrical transmission grids.55 In addition to this, it is worth mentioning that Tripoli has recently donated fuel and food to alleviate the shortages of basic commodities Tunisia has been experiencing over the last months.56

The Cost of the “Non-Maghreb” and the Libyan Crisis

Even though some of the threats emanating from the Libyan conflict now seem to have faded and been “resorbed” into a more domestic dimension, since the fall of the Gaddafi regime the crisis has contributed to shape the internal and foreign policies of Maghreb states and their regional stance and ambitions.

While Morocco has pursued a strategy of “active neutrality” towards the conflict, organising at least three different rounds of talks involving Libyan political factions, the role of Algeria in mediating the crisis has appeared more marginal. Significantly, the country has been more focused in responding to the multiplicity of threats stemming from Libya and trying to insulate itself against the spillover of the conflict. Tunisia, the country most affected by the security and economic repercussions of its neighbour’s chaos, played a limited mediating role in the crisis, although it emerged as the very centre of Libyan diplomacy for several years.

The “non-Maghreb” played a role in the way in which the region has dealt with the crisis, with division and disunion weakening the prospect for an effective Maghrebi role in mediation efforts over the last decade. Contingencies internal to the Maghreb have largely affected the formation of those nations’ respective Libyan policies,57 and distrust and competition have led to the primacy of respective national interests when facing common challenges, such as those related to security and transnational illicit flows.58

Indeed, while the problems emanating from the country have posed common threats to the whole region, the reality of the “non-Maghreb” has prevented cooperative approaches and coordinated efforts. Competition has also resulted in the fostering of alternative frameworks of dialogue, such as those facilitated by Morocco and the talks hosted in Algeria or Tunisia.59 As long as tensions and ideological differences persist, a Maghrebi response to the Libyan chaos is highly unlikely.60 Even the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) attempt at establishing a common voice to respond to the crisis proven unsuccessful. The latest call to hold a ministerial Maghreb meeting on Libya failed in June 2022.61 With new heightened tensions in the region, the break in diplomatic ties between Algeria and Morocco in August 2021, the ongoing bilateral crisis between Morocco and Tunisia and the emergence of new factors of hostility (such as Israel’s entry into the Maghreb through its privileged relationship with Morocco), this prospect seems to move further away.

The reverberation of the “non-Maghreb” in the Libyan crisis is not the only lens that can be used to analyse relations between Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya: another one could be the persistence of “non-Libya”, which has an impact on the Maghreb. Indeed, the absence of a viable diplomatic, security and political partner in the region has hindered the establishment of venues for collaboration in the Maghreb to tackle the challenges of transnational criminal networks, jihadi terrorism and, more broadly, expand opportunities for cross-border cooperation. A “collapsed” economy, which experienced a GDP per capita decline of 50% between 2011 and 2020 (as against a projected increase of 68% if it had followed pre-conflict economic trends),62 has affected the whole region in terms of limited economic and commercial opportunities and lack of investment in infrastructure, and has fuelled economic fragmentation, widened gaps in regional connectivity and further obstructed the building of a Maghrebi space.

The whole region would benefit from a stabilised and prosperous Libya. This situation would bring new economic and trade exchanges and opportunities for Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian corporations, small and medium enterprises and bank groups in rebuilding the country as well as job opportunities for their citizens and economic migrants from neighbouring states.

With little prospect of lasting stability and unified national institutions in Libya in the future, and with no signs of change in the political status quo, Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian approaches to the country’s gridlock will soon be further influenced and shaped by the many political issues and crises that have recently emerged in the region. These include increasing migration flows across the Central Mediterranean route, the associated humanitarian crises at the Libya-Tunisia border, and possible further destabilisation of the Sahel region, following the coup d’état in Niger in August 2023.

1 The chapter does not analyse the impact of the Libyan crisis on Mauritania’s internal and external policies, due to the less prominent role played by the crisis in defining Nouakchott’s political priorities.

2 H. Amirah-Fernandez, “The Maghreb: Regional Disintegration and the Risks of the Zero-Sum Logic”, Commentary, ISPI, 14 June 2023.

3 F. Ghilès, “The Maghreb refuses to share”, Le Monde Diplomatique, February 2010.

4 C. Gazzini, “Forming a Unity Government May be Libya’s Best Bet for Healing Rift”, Commentary, International Crisis Group, 7 August 2023.

5 Conversation with Jalel Harchaoui, Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), July 2023.

6 Conversation with Luis Martinez, Research Director, Sciences Po Paris, September 2023.

7 Data from TRADEMAP.

8 Y. Abouzzohour, “Libya’s Tangier Talks: Why is Morocco getting involved?”, Commentary Op-Ed, Brookings Institution, 3 December 2020.

9 Ibid. The final status of the Western Sahara, which Rabat considers an integral part of the Kingdom’s territory while Algiers supports the Polisario Front and the quest for independence, has been a major source of contention between Morocco and Algeria for almost 50 years.

10 In exchange, the NTC spokesman in London, Guma al-Gamaty, declared on regional television in Laayoune that “the future of the Sahara can only be conceived under the sovereignty” of Morocco. “Gaddafi’s fall strengthens Morocco over Western Sahara”, Morocco World News, 11 September 2011.

11 Y. Abouzzohour, “Libya’s Tangier Talks: Why is Morocco getting involved?”..., cit.

12 “The Libyan Political Agreement: Time for a Reset”, Report no. 170, International Crisis Group, 4 November 2016.

13 T. Hamamdjian, “Crise en Libye : pourquoi le Maroc joue les facilitateurs”, Jeune Afrique, 7 September 2020.

14 Made up of six members from each Chamber.

15 “Moroccan FM Bourita: The 6+6 Joint Committee reached agreements but they cannot be described as decisive”, Alwasat, 7 June 2023.

16 If Morocco hosted several talks of intra-Libyan dialogue, the country played a limited role within international diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict and during the many international forums devoted to Libya: although the country participated in the Palermo (2018) and Paris conference (2021), it was not invited to the Berlin International Conference on Libya and this, combined with the German diplomatic stance on the Western Sahara issue (in December 2020 Berlin requested a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss developments in the Western Sahara, days after US president Donald Trump recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed region), led to a spiralling crisis between Rabat and Berlin in the following months. The country also did not take part in the Second Berlin Conference on Libya in June 2021.

17 T. M. Hill, “What’s Next for Libya’s Protracted Conflict?”, United States Institute of Peace, 14 June 2022.

18 Ibid.

19 I. Stitou, “Morocco, Algeria compete over Libya”, Al-Monitor, 23 April 2015.

20 Conversation with Jalel Harchaoui, July 2023.

21 Amirah-Fernandez (2023).

22 Hamamdjian (2020).

23 F. Bobin, “L’Algérie enrôle la Tunisie dans son conflit avec le Maroc”, Le Monde, 16 September 2022.

24 T. Magerisi, “Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia. Neighboring States - Diverging Approaches”, in K. Mezran and A. Varvelli, Foreign Actors in Libya’s Crisis, Report, ISPI-Ledizioni, 26 July 2017.

25 R. Hamdi, “Libye : le risque d’escalade militaire replace l’Algérie sur le devant de la scène diplomatique”, Jeune Afrique, 8 January 2020.

26 R. Carayol and L. Gagnol, “Ces murs de sable qui surgissent au Sahara”, Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2021.

27 “One year on from In Amenas attack”, Economist Intelligence Unit, 14 January 2014.

28 Conversation with Luis Martinez…, cit.

29 In 2011, Algiers warned Western States that the collapse of the Libyan regime would have cataclysmic consequences on the whole region. Conversation with Francis Ghilès, Visiting Fellow, King’s College London, Senior Associate researcher, CIDOB, October 2023.

30 Conversation with Barah Mikaïl, Director, Program of Political Science and International Relations, Saint-Louis University – Madrid Campus, July 2023.

31 However, Algeria still retains pervasive intelligence networks at its eastern and southern borders. Conversation with Francis Ghilès…, cit.; A. Bensaad, “Pourquoi l’Algérie est hors-jeu en Libye”, Orient XXI, 7 July 2021.

32 F. Polat, “Algeria’s Role in Libya”, TRT World Research Centre, Policy Outlook, 24 April 2020.

33 Hamdi (2020).

34 “Algeria’s president declares Libya’s Tripoli a ‘red line’”, Middle East Eye, 7 January 2020.

35 F. Bobin, “Avec sa nouvelle Constitution, l’Algérie rompt avec sa tradition de non-interventionnisme militaire”, Le Monde, 3 November 2020.

36 “Algeria to host foreign ministers on Libya crisis”, Reuters, 22 January 2020.

37 F. Polat, “Algeria’s Role in Libya”, TRT World Research Centre..., cit.

38 A. Marwane, “Haftar on Algeria: Testing the Waters”, Washington Institute, Fikra Forum, 15 October 2018.

39 A. Taylor, “Algeria’s Libya problem”MENASource, Atlantic Council, 28 February 2018.

40 F. Iraqi, “De la Libye au Mali, la bataille diplomatique entre l’Algérie et le Maroc s’intensifie”, Jeune Afrique, 29 October 2020.

41 “Algeria, Tunisia and Libya pledge to continue efforts for Libyan elections to succeed”, Arab News, 2 November 2021.

42 M. Sellami, “Règlement de la crise libyenne : L’Algérie et la Tunisie pour une solution interne”, El Watan, 12 June 2022.

43 Libyans need no visa to enter Tunisia and benefit from a 1973 convention which in principle allows them to work, doing businesses, and circulate in the country. The country’s economy has also benefited from the influx of Libyan citizens following the 2011 revolution, in 2015 an annual injection of $1 billion was estimated into the Tunisian economy, in particular due to impacts on hotels, restaurants, private hospitals, and schools. Tunisia emerged as a prominent destination for Libyans seeking for medical cares. O. Karasapan, “The impact of Libyan middle-class refugees in Tunisia”, Brookings Institution, 17 March 2015.

44 World Bank, “Impact of the Libya Crisis on the Tunisian Economy”, February 2017.

45 L. Fruganti, “New Political Setting, Old Spectres: Tunisia’s Looming Jihadist Threat”, Commentary, ISPI, 22 July 2022.

46 F. Wehrey, “Tunisia’s Wake-Up Call: How Security Challenges From Libya Are Shaping Defense Reforms”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Paper, 18 March 2020.

47 Magerisi (2017).

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Algeria reopened its consulate in January 2022 while Morocco has only recently announced the intention to reopen its consulates in both the Libyan capital and Benghazi and appointed the two consuls general. “Réouverture du Consulat général d’Algérie à Tripoli”, Algérie Presse Service, 9 January 2022 ; S. Kasraoui, “Morocco Plans to Open Consulates in Libya’s Tripoli, Benghazi”, Morocco World News, 30 May 2023.

51 Most recently, Tunis was used as a “rear base” for the GNS led by Fathi Bashaga, at least until he was forced to leave the country and asked not to use Tunisia for “his political ambitions”. N. Porsia, Mal di Libia, Milan, Bompiani, 2023, p. 110; S. Alharathy, “Africa Intelligence: Kais Saied forced Bashagha out of Tunisia”, The Libya Observer, 23 April 2022.

52 “Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt agree to terms for peace in Libya”, Middle East Monitor, 20 February 2017.

53 W. Ayadi, “Tunisie : L’aide alimentaire de la Libye, commentée par Jouini, Moalla et Jhinaoui”, Gnet News, 19 January 2023.

54 M. Azarkan, “Kais Saied works with Libya to restore the Maghreb Arab Union”, Atalayar, 18 March 2021.

55 “Libya to pay outstanding debts to Tunisia”, Middle East Monitor, 2 December 2022.

56 A. Oyinloye, “Libya donates basic commodities to Tunisia”, Africanews, 18 January 2023.

57 Conversation with Jalel Harchaoui…, cit.

58 Conversation with Barah Mikaïl…, cit.

59 E. Soler i Lecha, “The other Africa: overlapping rivalities in the Maghreb”, IDEES, 28 January 2022

60 Y. Abouzzohour, “Libya’s peace process: What’s at stake for the Maghreb, 10 years after Gadhafi’s overthrow”, Commentary, Brookings Institution, 19 August 2021.

61 “Maghreb Union invites member states to hold meeting on Libya”, Libya Update, 6 July 2022.

62 Data from the World Bank.

5. The “Non-Maghreb” and Transnational Clandestine Flows from the Sahel Region

Matt Herbert

The tense relations and poor coordination of the “non-Maghreb” pose a challenge beyond licit economic and political spheres. They have also impacted the evolution of illicit markets and transnational flows between the Maghreb and the countries of the Sahel.

The two regions are knit together by dense webs of clandestine flows, which reach to and impact even areas of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria that are far distant from the central-Saharan border zone between the Maghreb and Sahel.1 Large volumes of consumer goods, such as food and fuel, move south. Migrant convoys head north, carrying passengers seeking work in Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Libyan cities or hoping to embark from North Africa’s coast towards Europe. Drug traffickers move high value shipments of cannabis resin, cocaine or diverted pharmaceuticals through the regions’ borderlands, going to or coming from coastal trafficking entrepots. In turn arms traders move cargo from old war zones to the areas where fighting is ongoing, or where it may be on the horizon. More worryingly for the states involved, heavily armed violent extremist organizations (VEOs) and mercenary fighters (doubling in some cases as bandits) also operate between the Maghreb and Sahel, fuelling violence and menacing governance throughout a large swath of territory.

The states of the Maghreb face substantial challenges in response. Not all of these are due to the complicated geopolitical relations within the Maghrebi. The high resilience of the contraband ecosystem, poor state-community engagement in borderland areas, and the impact of state absence in border areas are key dynamics impeding response. However, the limited engagement and poor coordination on the issue by Maghrebi states, as well as the impact of Maghrebi tensions on engagement with regional states, has effectively hobbled efforts to craft a transnational response to the transnational challenged posed by clandestine flows.

This chapter unpacks these challenges and responses. It begins by detailing the largely clandestine flows between the Maghreb and Sahel. Next it assesses the challenges Maghrebi states face in responding to these issues. It ends with a discussion of new responses which have been developed, and opportunities for bettering intra-regional coordination.

Assessing Clandestine Flows of Goods and People

Clandestine flows of goods and people are a ubiquitous feature in the borderlands between the Maghreb and Sahel. The flows are diverse, encompassing everything from pasta to cocaine, economic migrants to foreign fighters. Enabled by dense webs of social connections between the two regions, dispersed ethnic groups and basic supply and demand drivers, these flows have long been vitally important livelihood opportunities for populations that otherwise have few licit options, in areas which are generally economically and politically marginalized.

They are not, however, a static phenomenon, as the last twenty years have evidenced. Over this time period, the volume of these flows has alternately expanded and ebbed, the nature of goods traded has shifted, the types of transnational actors have changed, and the impact of clandestine activity on areas of the Maghreb far removed from the borderlands themselves has intensified.2

This section charts these shifts, looking first at the clandestine movement of goods, consumer goods, drugs and arms, before assessing the flow of people between the two regions, focusing on migrants, VEOs and mercenaries.

Consumer goods

The first and most omnipresent type of goods smuggled between the Maghreb and Sahel involves basic consumer products – including food, fuel, electronics, vehicles and livestock.3 In most cases the directionality of the flow is north to south, with goods purchased in states such as Libya and Algeria, where subsidies are high and costs low, before being transported to Mali, Niger, Chad or Sudan and sold for a markup.4 This system in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands mirrors, but is generally distinct from, cross-border commodity smuggling between Maghrebi states.

There is no single set of routes for commercial good smuggling. Movement rather is fluid and diffuse, sensitive to shifts in supply and demand. Nonetheless, there are nexus points where smugglers and networks concentrate usually either to buy or sell contraband. These include cities and towns such as Sebha in southern Libya, Agadez in northern Niger, and Ber and Agazragane in northern Mali, as well as desert contraband markets such as the Muthalath on the Libya-Sudan border, where much of the contraband heading into Sudan is channelled, and El Akla on the Niger-Algeria border, which plays a similar function on that frontier.5 Finally, substantial volumes of contraband consumer good are moved to and through the constellation of artisanal gold fields scattered throughout the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands.6

The smuggling of consumer goods has oscillated over the last three years. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic led to internal mobility restrictions and border closures throughout the two regions that briefly depressed contraband trade. In 2022, the war in Ukraine led to heightened inflation – particularly for food – leading states such as Algeria to clamp down on smuggling.7 However, in both instances the impact on the smuggling of consumer goods was relatively limited, with the overall smuggling ecosystem remaining remarkably stable.

This resilience is linked to the broad tolerance for consumer good smuggling by both government officials and communities, meaning the barriers to entry into the trade are extraordinarily low. Consequently, many of the networks involved in transporting such goods are small and atomized, creating jobs for large numbers of border community members whose economic options are otherwise bleak.8

In some cases, however, larger and more highly organized networks have emerged, particularly around the smuggling of fuel.9 In eastern Libya, for example, senior officials in the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), a non-state armed group, partnered in early 2022 with actors in Sudan Rapid Support Forces to facilitate a network smuggling fuel in industrial quantities.10 The volumes are reportedly substantial enough that municipal authorities in the south-eastern city of Kufra have reportedly collected up to US$200,000 (€181,290) per month via taxation of the network.11

Illicit Drugs

Illicit drugs form the second large clandestine flow of goods in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands. While consumer goods are more ubiquitous and economically salient to the broader regional population, drug trafficking has allowed for a more limited number of actors to reap substantial profits. Within this market, shifts in trafficking dynamics and consumer demand between and within Maghrebi states exert a substantial impact on trends in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands.

Starting in the 1990s, Moroccan cannabis traffickers altered their routes in response to heightened law enforcement pressure around the Straits of Gibraltar and Alboran Sea. They began to transport shipments south into the central Sahara – hewing close to the border between Maghrebi states and their Sahelian counterparts – leveraging into existent clandestine transportation networks in the area that had previously been involved consumer good smuggling.12 By the early 2000s, cocaine traffickers began to leverage much of this infrastructure to move shipments northeast, from the West Africa coast towards Algeria and Libya.13 Finally, in the 2010s, diverted or counterfeit pharmaceuticals – primarily Tramadol and counterfeit captagon – started to be trafficked to and through the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands, with some flows coming south from the coastal areas of Libya and Tunisia, while others stretching north from ports in the Gulf of Guinea.14

Since 2020, the trafficking of all three types of narcotics has broadly increased. Most cannabis resin trafficked through the space continues to originate in Morocco, with the drugs transported via 4x4 through Mauritania and into northern Mali in the Taoudenni region, before either being transported north into Algeria or east into northern Niger and, via the Salvador pass area, into southern Libya.15

However, as violence has increased in the central Sahara another set of routes has emerged from the Gulf of Guinea. There cannabis resin shipments – coming from Morocco or the Levant – that have been hidden in shipping containers are offloaded in major ports and then moved north on commercial trucking, mainly via Niger, before being reloaded into 4x4s for desert transit. Established Sahelian drug trafficking networks are reportedly involved with the shipments, which are ultimately destined for transhipment – via Libyan ports – towards high-value consumer markets.16

Cocaine trafficking too has manifested an increase, representing a rebound after a sustained dip in the mid-2010s. Shipments continue to move west to east, typically transiting Mali and northern Niger, before being routed near the Salvador pass into Libya or into Chad via the Kourzo pass, and then north.17

While some shipments proceed via offroad routes, there is reportedly substantial trafficking in some Sahelian countries along main road, sometimes involving cars with official plates and with politically linked figures involved.18 Once shipments cross into Libya, trafficking is allegedly facilitated by senior armed group actors, particularly those linked to LAAF.19

There is no single trafficking group which enjoys dominance over cannabis and cocaine trafficking in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands. Rather, drug transportation is conducted by small, often ethnically based networks who leverage local knowledge and contacts to safely transport shipments across discrete distances, before passing it off to other networks. In northern Mali, for example, networks rooted in various Arab tribes (such as the Bérabiche and Lamhar) or Tuareg fractions are key players in the trade.20 Along Niger’s border with Libya, similar influence is exercised by individuals from the Tebu and Tuareg tribal groups.21

However, despite the lack of a cartel, the growth of cocaine and cannabis resin trafficking between the two regions has negatively impacted security and stability in both. In part this is due to the heightened co-option of state officials by traffickers, a dynamic which has degraded the rule of law, heightened corruption and in some areas heightened tension between local law enforcement agencies and their international counterparts.22 Traffickers employ a similar tactic with armed groups, routinely paying armed tribal groups, militias and VEOs for the right to transport shipments across their territory, in so doing enhancing the profitability and operational capacity of these actors.23

Though infrequent, trafficking has also at times driven violence – particularly in northern Mali and Niger, and in southern Libya. Generally, this has involved clashes between competing armed groups over profits from shipments. However, trafficking has also birthed an industry of heavily armed bandits – often former Chadian mercenaries – who specialize in hijacking and then reselling cocaine or cannabis convoys. This, in turn, has driven some traffickers – particularly those transporting cocaine – to heavily arm themselves or contract with armed actors for more robust protection. These dynamics have fuelled an escalating series of clashes in northern Niger and southern Libya, though to date have not sparked any sparked more generalized instability.24

Weapons

The third type of clandestine flow in goods between the Maghreb and Sahel involves firearms and ammunition. Limited quantities of firearms were smuggled between the two regions for decades, with the directionality of flows shifting in response to oscillation in demands in either region for firearms. This low-level flow changed in 2011, as Libyan revolution led to the looting of military and security force arms depots. Large volumes of weaponry were subsequently smuggled out of Libya, in particular to Mali, where they helped to fuel the country’s internal conflict.25

However, weapons trafficking cannot be reduced to a clandestine flow coming from Libya and into the Sahel. Rather, the directionality of flows is heavily influenced by conflict intensity and demand. For example, when tensions have risen in Libya – such as in the mid-2010s – outbound weapons flows diminish and in some cases reverse, with traffickers sourcing weapons in the Sahel and moving them north into the Maghreb.26 There has also been a limited amount of weapons trafficking north from Mali into southern Algeria, as evidenced by the large number of caches found by the Algerian military along the southwestern border.27

Over the last three years, there has been an increase in weaponry flowing from Libya towards the Sahel. This was likely driven mainly by spiralling conflict in Mali and Burkina Faso. However, it has been enabled by the uneasy though durable peace Libya has experienced since 2020, which has led some armed groups and private actors to acquiesce to the sale of private stocks to traffickers or facilitate the importation of new weapons meant for export south. The UN Panel of Experts for Mali noted, for example, that armed groups in the north of Mali made “massive purchases of new arms” in Libya in 2022, largely to aid in combating the Islamic State-Sahel Province (IS-Sahel).28 Reportedly, there has also been a general increase in the availability and sale of new assault rifles in major cities in northern Mali, all reportedly trafficked from Libya.29

Weapons trafficking has also been driven by the rise in artisanal gold mining in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands. Miners, seeking to nominally protect themselves from bandits operating in and near the fields have increasingly armed themselves.30 Further, the rise in bandit attacks on gold convoys has driven an increased interest in armaments by those responsible for transporting the mineral.31

Migrants

In addition to the smuggling and trafficking of goods between the Maghreb and Sahel, there are large clandestine movements of people between the two regions. The most common involves human smuggling, and irregular migration more broadly. While population mobility in the borderlands has deep historic roots, the current flow of migrants – comprised of individuals seeking employment either in North African cities or irregular transport to Europe – is more recent. Over the last twenty years, the number of irregular migrants heading north, the routes they take, and the number of human smuggling networks catering to them have sharply increased.32 This has been fuelled by a variety of dynamics in both the Maghreb and Sahel, including intensifying economic and social drivers of migration and weakening state capacity along key smuggling routes.33

The overall human smuggling ecosystem between the Maghreb and Sahel is highly resilient, capable of withstanding shocks – such as law enforcement activity and border closures – with flows diverted or diminished rather than ended. This is engendered by the structure of how smuggling works, and how it is embedded into regional communities. Broadly, most migrant journeys from the Sahel to Maghreb are hybrid, with migrants moving legally – often using commercial buses – for large amounts of the journey, before leveraging the services of smugglers for specific legs, usually when either law enforcement action is high, movement is legally prohibited or commercial transport is unavailable.34 Smugglers involved in the transport of migrants generally operate in small networks, with barriers to entry into the activity fairly low.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily limited the movement of migrants between the two regions, due both to internal mobility constraints – particularly in Niger and Mali – and the closure and tight policing of regional borders.35 This pause was, however, relatively brief, with human smuggling in the Sahel networks ramping up their activities again by the autumn of that year.

Since that point, human smuggling and migration have largely rebounded, though the routes used – and migrants using them – have shifted. Movement from Niger to Libya has declined in importance as a migration route, though some human smuggling continues. Mostly this involves Nigerien migrants who engage in circular migration, traveling to southern Libya for season work, before returning to Niger for the agricultural planting season.36 The limited number of foreign migrants who continue to be smuggled from Niger into Libya tend to move through remote routes through the east of Niger, heightening risks from vehicle breakdowns and bandit attacks.

A growing number of migrants have begun to transit Algeria on their way to embarkation zones in on the Mediterranean. This has heightened the importance of routes in western Niger – particularly the town of Tahoua – and in north-western Mali, mainly via Timbuktu.37 This shift has had ramifications on Tunisia, with heightened numbers of West African migrants crossing into the country from Algeria in 2022 and 2023. Their arrival has further heightened tensions within Tunisia, with clashes between Tunisians and foreigners and anti-migrant discourse increasing in frequency, as well as between Tunisia and European states, as growing numbers of foreign migrants have embarked from the country for Europe.

Violent Extremist Organizations

VEOs comprise the second clandestine flow of people between the Maghreb and Sahel. The movement of VEOs between the two regions is relatively longstanding, with Algeria’s Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which later became Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), operating units in border lands of southern Algeria, northern Mali and north-western Niger since the early 2000s.38 These units were largely logistical and fundraising endeavours, transporting goods, levying taxes in smugglers and transporting hostages for ransom across regional borders in order to support combat units in northern Algeria.39

However, the directionality of movement and routes used has shifted substantially since 2011. During that period, AQIM’s presence and operational capacity declined sharply in northern Algeria due to pressure by government forces.40

In contrast, the group’s Saharan units thrived, with the group building influence and capacity by deepening ties with communities in northern Mali, as well as becoming deeply involved in cross-border crime.41 In 2012, AQIM along two closely linked VEOs, Ansar Eddine and the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa, exploited a rebellion by Tuareg armed groups to take large parts of northern Mali.42 Though French intervention ended this territorial control, the group continued to operate throughout a broad swath of Mali. Along with three other extremist groups, AQIM units in the Sahel eventually became part of Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), one of the two major VEOs currently fighting in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the other being IS-Sahel.43

These two groups have expanded dramatically in recent years, effectively seizing territory and exerting influence over a broad swath of central and northern Mali, Burkina Faso and western areas of Niger. While JNIM and IS-Sahel stage transnational operation, this is mainly within the Sahel and West Africa.44 Despite a rise in the two groups’ territorial control in the Sahel and Central Sahara, this has not yet translated into a substantial threat to southern areas of Algeria. Nonetheless, there continues to be a flow personnel between Algeria and zones in Mali where the two groups are based, including both seasoned fighters and newly radicalized individuals.45

Another major pole for VEOs has emerged, however, in Libya. Since 2011, both AQIM and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant – Libya (ISIL-Libya) have enjoyed an ongoing presence in the country.46 At times, such as in Sirte under the Islamic State, this presence has shifted over to territorial control, though this has never been durable.

At present, main zone of presence for both AQIM and the Islamic State is in southwestern Libya, near the borders with Algeria and Niger. Rare attacks have occurred there, however both groups have broadly leveraged the area as a logistical hub to support VEO units fighting in the Sahel and Lake Chad basin. AQIM in Libya and JNIM remain well connected, for example, with the former reportedly hosting fighters coming from Niger as well as providing other forms of logistical support.47 The UN has reported that ISIL-Libya engages actively with IS-Sahel and other Islamic State units in West Africa, offering training and logistical provision to strengthen their capacity, as well as more broadly drawing recruits from throughout the Maghreb and Sahel.48

Overall, VEO activity and movement within the Sahel and between the Sahel and Maghreb are one of the most acute security threats facing the two regions. For the moment, however, risk is mainly concentrated in the Sahel, where government forces have gradually been driven out or functionally side-lined in a growing number of areas. There is a risk that the recent coup in Niger, and the threatened intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), could further enable the expansion of the groups in that country, potentially heightening threats to southern Algeria and southwestern Libya in the process.

Mercenaries

The final clandestine flow of people between the Maghreb and Sahel involves mercenaries, mainly hailing from Chad or Sudan. Beginning in mid-2015, Sudanese armed groups which had been involved in the conflict in Darfur began to cross north into Libya. Initially this was for survival, with battlefield losses in Sudan placing them in an increasingly tenuous position. However, once in Libya groups such as the Sudan Liberation Army / Minni Minawi (SLA/MM), Gathering of the Sudan Liberation Forces and the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid (SLA/AW) turned to mercenary work, largely with the LAAF. This was facilitated by cross-border tribal connections as well as higher level connections between Libyan and Sudanese armed groups.49 A similar evolution transpired for Chadian rebel groups, such as the Front pour l’alternance et la concorde au T’chad (FACT), which re-based to southern Libya due to Chadian government pressure and then began to engage in mercenary work.50

Mercenary work in Libya allowed the Sahel groups to recoup substantial payments – with individuals groups earning up to US$1.2 million per month – as well as access new equipment.51 It also enabled substantial recruitment, with the UN finding in 2017 that “many young Darfurians consider working as a mercenary in Libya to be less risky than attempting the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean, and more profitable than working as an illegal migrant in Europe”.52

Since 2020, mercenary dynamics have shifted. The conclusion of the war between the LAAF and Tripoli based government in June of that year left the former facing a significant financial deficit. As a result, it gradually lowered and then ended payments to Sahelian mercenaries.53 As well, in October 2020, the government of Sudan and various armed groups, including those fighting in Libya, signed the Juba Accords, a peace agreement which enabled fighters to return to Sudan.

These two dynamics shifted mercenary movement southwards. A number of signatory Sudanese armed groups working as mercenaries rebased part of their forces to Sudan, though many left a residual presence and heavy weapons in Libya.54

This cut off in funding shifted the calculus for the Sudanese and Chadian groups. Some Sudanese units sought to return to Sudan, a process eased by the signing of the Juda Accords peace agreement in October 2020 between the government of Sudan and many of the armed groups active in Libya. Chadian groups, in turn, in some cases sought to re-invigorate their attempts to overthrow the N’djamena government, most vividly in 2021 when the FACT staged an invasion that, while unsuccessful, led to the death of President Idriss Déby.

Other mercenaries, operating individually or in small groups, have turned to organized crime in the borderlands between southern Libya and northern Niger, Chad, and Sudan.55 Their involvement in banditry in particular – targeting drug traffickers, migrant smugglers, and military and civilian convoys carrying gold – has contributed to a noticeable worsening of the security situation in some borderland areas.56

As this section has underscored, the Maghreb and Sahel are deeply connected contraband flows. Some – such as commercial goods or of migrants – are positive for stability, providing economic opportunities to borderland communities, and to tamping down grievances against the state.

Others pose more acute threats. In part this is due to direct violence and contestations against state actors, perpetrated by VEOs such as JNIM and IS-Sahel. In other instances, the challenge emerges from the corrosion of the state by traffickers, with the establishment of a political-criminal nexus across broad zones in the borderlands, involving both corrupt payments to state officials and direct involvement by state actors and political figures in criminal activity.

Finally, while this section has treated each type of flow individually, in practice there is a substantial amount of interconnection between them. Low-level smugglers of consumer goods graduate into the smuggling of drugs or weapons. Migrants heading north port tramadol to fund their journey. Weapons traffickers arm both cocaine smugglers and the mercenaries turned bandits who predate upon them. VEOs tax clandestine flows routing through their territory. This interconnectivity contributes to the broader resilience of clandestine flows of goods and people in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands, complicates an assessment of the risks posed and complicates effective response.

Stage Challenges in Responding

States in the Maghreb and Sahel have faced significant challenges in managing – let alone curtailing – the clandestine flows detailed in the previous section. In large part this is due to the structural factors driving clandestine flows and their resilience. Broadly, the driver of most transnational flows in goods and people is economic. The borderlands between the Maghreb and Sahel are an economically marginal zone, with few licit jobs or economic opportunities. This situation has worsened over the last 20 years, as tourism in areas like southern Algeria, northern Mali and northern Niger has largely ceased due to VEO and kidnapping threats.57 Extraction of resources in the area, such as uranium in northern Niger, and oil and gas in southern Algeria and Libya, typically produce few jobs or economic benefits to local populations.58

As a result, involvement in illicit economies – mainly the clandestine movement of goods and people – is one of a very limited number of economic opportunities available to borderland populations.59 Smuggling and trafficking are also the most lucrative opportunity available, with even relatively low-level smuggling in goods offering earnings that substantially outpace licit options.60 In Libya, for example, smugglers can purchase fuel for around US$ 0.11 per litre, transport it directly across the border into northern Chad, and sell for up to US$ 0.89 (the legal price per litre).61

Due to the economic importance of informal and illicit economies, as well as long standing social norms, communities in the southern areas of the Maghreb and northern Sahel often hold nuanced and broadly tolerant views on involvement in clandestine flows. The trade of consumer goods or movement of migrants, for example, is broadly seen as legally and morally acceptable commerce.62 Other contraband flows – such as drugs and arms – are viewed as more criminal, though there is some evidence these taboos have faded in recent years. Youth in southern Algeria, for example, increasingly involved in trafficking drugs, an activity which previous generations largely avoided.63

Functionally, barriers to entry into clandestine activity, then, are relatively low in many places. While high-value activities such as drug trafficking can be more siloed, they nonetheless have a substantial population of individuals from whom to draw on.

As a result of these dynamics, the clandestine ecosystem between the Maghreb and Sahel is comprised of a large number of small networks, with intersect and partner in often fluid, transactional engagements.

This structure gives the ecosystem relatively high resilience to efforts by states to curtail or eliminate it. When one network is arrested, others are readily able to step in and take its place. In situations in which persistent law enforcement action has focused on a single clandestine flow – such as the counter human smuggling efforts in Niger post-2016 – most often displaces routes to zones of lessened control or displaces smugglers into other informal markets – such as contraband consumer goods, gold mining, or drug trafficking.

However, while the structure of clandestine flows impedes state efforts to manage or curtail clandestine flows, there are key weaknesses in how states have sought to respond. These link to three main factor: poor coordination between states, the retreat in state control and presence, and deficient engagement by states with communities.

The first factor impacting state responses is a history of poor to non-existent engagement and coordination between states on addressing transnational flows.64 Broadly, security forces in Maghrebi and Sahelian states have approached the challenge posed by the clandestine flows unilaterally, with coordinated operations and patrolling rare and information sharing on cross-border clandestine flows generally limited, slow and highly siloed.65 Effectively, despite being transnational, clandestine flows between the regions aren’t treated as a common threat, but as a domestic challenge for the states involved.

While in some cases these gaps in coordination reflect technical impediments – such as a lack of interoperable communications equipment – in most cases the root of the issue is political, linked to broader bilateral disagreements and distrust. This distrust has – at times – been exacerbated by the presence of clandestine flows, with government officials throughout the region frequently ascribing failures by neighbouring states to halt cross-border flows as evidence of nefarious intent or part of a plot to undermine their neighbour’s domestic security.66 It is important to note that unilateral approaches to combating clandestine flows – such border closures, expulsions of migrants, and targeting of border communities – have a history of worsening tensions between neighbouring states, largely because of the cross-border ramifications on stability and security which unilateral moves have frequently had.

The implications of fraught bilateral relations on border security posture and coordination is most overt between, Algeria and Morocco, where the historically poor relations between the two states outlined previously in this volume has influenced the nature and degree of engagement.67 The two states quietly cooperate on efforts to address VEOs, however on nearly all other clandestine flows the two states functionally do not cooperate, even when their stated goals – such as combating human smuggling – is effectively identical.68 Rather, the neighbouring states have put in place a series of broadly similar, though unilateral, initiatives, such as building walls and installing surveillance systems.69 These approaches have had a some impact on the clandestine ecosystem, mainly on fuel smuggling, though overall they have failed to substantially dent most flows, with drug trafficking and human smuggling largely unaffected.70

The dynamic between Algeria and Morocco is an extreme example, with bilateral relations between other states in the Maghreb and Sahel generally less fraught. However, even if lower-grade, tension and distrust between states in the two regions remain the norm, and there is no truly effective example of bilateral engagement and coordination.

Poor relations between states have also had an impact on multilateral coordination.71 In recent decades, a number of cross-regional economic or security bodies, such as the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the Comité d’État-Major Opérationnel Conjoint and the Nouakchott Process, have been created. However, these the practical operation of these bodies has been limited, in large part due to contention between Algeria and Morocco.72

The second factor impeding the ability of states to address clandestine flows between the Maghreb and the Sahel has been the extreme fragility and, in some cases, functional elimination of state control in border regions. The two regions have seen a metastasizing series of conflicts involved either VEOS or rebel groups since 2011, including in Libya, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Sudan. While some states have enjoyed a degree of success in overcoming security challenges, in a number of other locations states have lost effective control over large swaths of their territory.

In these areas functional control – including both security and governance – is in the hands of non-state actors. In southern Libya, the LAAF and allied militias loosely govern the area. In north-western Sudan, the SLA-MM reportedly now controls border security and checkpoints, though both the RSF and Sudan Armed Forces are present. In northern Mali, the situation is more fragmented, with control exercised by the Coalition des Mouvements de l’Azawad, the Plateforme des mouvements du 14 juin 2014 d’Alger, JNIM and IS-Sahel.73

The retreat of the state across a wide span of the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands has substantial practical implications when it comes to security and crime. The most direct impact is on coordination and cooperation between states to address transnational flows. While operational linkages continue to exist between security forces in different Maghrebi and Sahelian states, their practical utility is limited. Mutual legal assistance, joint operations, and coordinated patrolling – all nominally key elements of addressing transnational criminal activity – necessarily require that states, and their law enforcement bodies, enjoy access to and control over areas where criminal activity is occurring. Across broad swaths of the Sahel and Libya, this is no longer feasible.

As a result, states which continue to enjoy functional control over their territory – such as Algeria, and to a more limited degree Niger and Chad, face the challenge of addressing transnational flows without formal partners.

Reliance on informal partners is possible, however it can be complicated by the significant interlinkages between non-state groups and actors involved in illicit economies. In Libya and throughout the Sahel, taxation and protection of smuggling is a key funding stream for armed groups.74 Some armed group members are also concurrently involved in smuggling or trafficking, further impacting their willingness to crack down on such clandestine flows.75 Further, tolerance of smuggling and trafficking also has political utility for non-state groups, building their support amongst communities which economically depend on involvement in illicit markets.76 When the LAAF assumed control over southwestern Libya, for example, it went through pains to stress to it would not crackdown on the smuggling of commercial goods, though it would seek to curtail the smuggling of migrants, as well as the trafficking of drugs and arms.77 In practice, even these limited prohibitions were discarded, with human smuggling continuing largely unimpeded, while senior LAAF officials came to dominate drug trafficking.78

Some states have also moved to innovate and achieve their security goals through more creative means. Algeria, for example, has run a highly effective demobilization program targeting its nationals fighting with VEOs in the Sahel, convincing relatively large numbers to surrender and be repatriated.79 Tunisia, in turn, has used messaging to smuggling networks in Libya to deter engagement with terrorist groups.80

At present, there is little indication that the retreat of the state in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands has halted. Rather, current events – such as the coup d’état in Niger and conflict in Sudan – heighten the risk that a large, broadly contiguous zone of territory across the central Sahara will see state influence wane further in coming years. Use of novel policy approaches – as adopted by Algeria and Tunisia – may offer an avenue forward for responding.

The final element impeding state responses in addressing transnational flows between the two regions involve longstanding weaknesses in how states engage with cross-border communities. In part, this reflects the basic reality that the political centres of gravity in the Maghreb and Sahel are far distant from their joint border. Tin Zaouatine, on Algeria’s border with Mali is slightly more than 1,800 km from Algiers; the distance from Niamey to Madama, close to the border with Libya, is more than 1,500 km.

These distances mean the borderland communities throughout the northern Sahel and southern Maghreb are on the extreme peripheries – economically and politically – of their respective states.81 These communities have historically enjoyed extremely limited influence on government decision making, including on border security policies and strategies directly relevant to borderland issues.

Security force and military officials tasked with implementing these policies, in turn, are typically drawn from populous, central areas of the state, and are serving in borderland areas as part of rotational deployment patterns. Understanding of, relationships with, and even abilities to communicate to border communities can often be inconsistent.

As a result, state efforts to halt smuggling and buttress security have often been seen in border communities themselves as an imposition from the outside which threatens their livelihoods, fuelling frustration and tension.82 This tension is often further exacerbated by the inability of regional states to catalyse licit economic growth and job creation.

State-community engagements can be further complicated by the substantial security pluralism in the borderlands, with multiple security actors – such as military, gendarmerie, and customs – active in the same space. Poor communication or approaches by one actor has the risk of colouring how communities perceive all government actors.

Poor engagement by states with border communities has practical implications for control of clandestine flows. Border security strategies conceived of in national capitals without community input risk being subverted by local communities or rendered obsolete when implemented in practice. Further, deficits in trust impede the willingness of community members to share information with security forces, and so impacting the efficiency of enforcement. It also heightens the risk that community members respond to heightened enforcement by taking greater risks in smuggling or becoming involved in more nefarious criminal activities, including involvement in violent extremism.83

Challenges in engaging border communities are compounded when a community or tribal group straddles international boundaries, as is common throughout the Maghreb and Sahel. There is little indication that bi-national or regional coordination and strategic planning on how to approach engagement with and policing of cross-border communities occurs within the Maghreb and Sahel, or between the two regions. Efforts to join up national approaches can be impeded by a number of dynamics, such as variance in laws, differing operational cultures and mandates, poor information sharing practices between security force, and divergence in national strategic approaches to borderland issues. However, the net effect is that policy approaches in borderland areas and towards borderland communities can both differ substantially on either side of a given border, impacting how smuggling occurs and broader perceptions of the state on both sides of a frontier.

Stable Flows in an Unstable Future

As this chapter has detailed, the Maghreb and Sahel are deeply connected by a number of different clandestine flows. For the states of the Maghreb, dynamics in the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands are vitally important for their stability and security, with clandestine flows impacting areas in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia which are far removed from the borderlands themselves.

Some of the clandestine flows in the borderlands pose a direct threat to regional states, such as terrorism or the transnational movement of mercenaries. Others, such as consumer good smuggling or transportation of migrants, are arguably stability enhancers for states which face significant limits in their ability to provide jobs in the borderlands.

States in both the Maghreb and Sahel have seen only limited impact from their efforts to counter or control clandestine flows. In part this is due to the structural resilience of the flows. However, problematic approaches by states – and their growing retreat across broad swaths of both regions – are also a key factor.

Arguably, this points to the reality that a status quo approach by regional states to clandestine flows is untenable. In large part, such a push towards new approaches must tackle the entrenched political tensions which have hobbled operational engagement between states, both at the bilateral and multilateral level. Here, much of the onus is on Algeria and Morocco. While neither state is likely to readily abandon their unilateral approaches to addressing clandestine flows, the worsening security situation and retreat of state actors in the central Sahara is arguably a potential spur for political authorities in both states to act. As one unofficial effort aimed at building an intra-Maghreb regional border security strategy found, if political impediments are relaxed there is ample operational interest in cross-border engagement on clandestine flows.84

Efforts to improve engagement should also involve sharing of good practices and novel approaches in combating shared threats. Algeria, for example, has run a highly effective demobilization program targeting its nationals fighting with terrorist groups in the Sahel.85 Tunisia, in turn, has developed novel approaches to address cross-border terrorism risks. As one smuggler, from close to Sabratha noted, “the Tunisians made it clear that if we are found to harbour even one Tunisian jihadi they will make our lives impossible at the border so we are very careful now”.86 There is little indication that lessons learned from such initiatives has been diffused broadly within the Maghreb and Sahel, though given the growing retreat of states in the regions there is arguably an acute need for the promulgation, adaptation and adoption of approaches well geared to the new security environment.

Effective responses require a realistic assessment of what can be done. Ending clandestine flows entirely is impossible. The networks involved are highly resilient, the terrain in which they operate is vast and remote, and the communities which they draw from depend economically on the clandestine economy. However, shaping the regional smuggling and trafficking ecosystems to target and mitigate the most threatening issues, such as terrorism, mercenaries, high-intensity banditry, heavily armed trafficking and high-level corruption, is likely feasible. This requires prioritization of threats by regional states however, as well, crucially, as buy-in and acceptance from international actors whose interests may differ substantially.

There is also a need to gain buy-in and acceptance from below, from the borderland communities whose residents often rely on clandestine flows. Many of these communities are equally menaced by chronic violence and instability as state influence wanes. For smugglers, such chaos often poses a business risk, rather than boon. Mitigating these threats, then, can be a point for engagement then for state agents.

Creative policy adaptations, and the dissemination of lessons learned, are arguably vital not just for the Maghreb and Sahel, but for the broader international community. While the decline of state control is most vividly manifest in areas of Mali, Burkina Faso and Libya, the phenomena is by no means restricted to the Maghreb-Sahel borderlands. Neither are the complex webs of clandestine flows in people and goods. Both dynamics can be seen globally, underscoring the importance for the international community in developing and sharing effective approaches for dealing with such issues.

1 M. Micallef, R. Farrah, A. Bish, and V. Tanner, “After the Storm: Organized crime across the Sahel-Sahara following upheaval in Libya and Mali”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2019.

2 Ibid.; J Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

3 W. Lacher, Organised Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region, The Carnegie Papers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2012; F. Wehrey, “Insecurity and Governance Challenges in Southern Libya”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 30 March 2017; J, Brachet, “Manufacturing Smugglers: From Irregular to Clandestine Mobility in the Sahara”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 676, no. 1, 21 February 2018; J. Tubiana and C. Gramizzi, Lost in Trans-Nation: Tubu and Other Armed Groups and Smugglers along Libya’s Southern Border, Small Arms Survey, December 2018; Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019); International Crisis Group, Managing Trafficking in Northern Niger, Africa Report no. 285, January 2020; J. Tubiana, C. Warin, and M.S. Mangare, “Diaspora in Despair: Darfurian Mobility at a Time of International Disengagement”, HSBA/Security Assessment in North Africa/Small Arms Survey, 11 June 2020.

4 M. Shaw and T. Reitano, The Political Economy of Trafficking and Trade in the Sahara: Instability and Opportunities, World Bank, December 2014; Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019).

5 Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019); R. Farrah, Algeria’s Migration Dilemma: Migration and human smuggling in southern Algeria, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, December 2020; UN Security Council, “Letter dated 22 February 2023 from the Panel of Experts on Mali established pursuant to resolution 2374 (2017) addressed to the President of the Security Council”, S/2023/138, 22 February 2023.

6 A. Fereday, “Labour-trafficking in ASGM: Assessing risks in the Sahara-Sahel goldfields”, European Union and the German Federal Foreign Office under the OCWAR-T project, Research Report 3, June 2023.

7 R. Sekkai, “Algeria’s cash crunch: ‘Buying oil feels like buying drugs’”, BBC, 29 March 2022.

8 M. Herbert and M. Gallien, Divided they fall: Frontiers, borderlands and stability in North Africa, North Africa Report 6, Institute for Security Studies, December 2020; J. Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012.

9 H. de Balzac, T. Leggett, B. Ollivier, and F. Patuel, “Fuel Trafficking in The Sahel: Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment – Sahel”, UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2022.

10 M. Herbert, R. Horsely, and E. Badi, Illicit Economies and Peace and Security in Libya, April 2023; Illicit Economies and the UN Security Council, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, July 2023.

11 Ibid.

12 Micallef, Farrah, Bish and Tanner (2019); M. Herbert and M. Gallien, A rising tide: Trends in production, trafficking and consumption of drugs in North Africa, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, June 2020.

13 P. Tinti, “Drug trafficking in northern Mali: A tenuous criminal equilibrium”, ENACT Africa, September 2020.

14 International Crisis Group (ICG) (2020); Tubiana and Gramizzi (2018); Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019); R. Hoinathy, “Le trafic illicite de stupéfiants au Tchad contribue à l’insécurité régionale”, Institute for Security Studies, 25 August 2020.

15 UN Security Council, Letter dated 6 August 2021 from the Panel of Experts on Mali established pursuant to resolution 2374 (2017) addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2021/714, 6 August 2021.

16 A. Fereday and M. Herbert, “Strange Days for Hashish Trafficking in Niger”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 11 May 2021; UN Security Council, Letter dated 6 August 2021 from the Panel of Experts on Mali…, cit.

17 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Global Report on Cocaine 2023: Local dynamics, global challenges, March 2023.

18 Interviews, Libyan and Sahelian contacts, February 2022.

19 Herbert, Horsely, and Badi (2023).

20 Tinti (2020).

21 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Global Report on Cocaine 2023…, cit.

22 Tinti (2020).

23 UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2023: Booklet 8, Developments and Emerging Trends in Selected Drug Markets, June 2023; Herbert, Horsely, and Badi (2023).

24 Herbert, Horsely, and Badi (2023).

25 Lacher (2012); Conflict Armament Research, Investigating Cross-border Weapon Transfers in the Sahel, November 2016; M. Bromley, G. Maletta, and K. Brockmann, “Arms transfer and SALW controls in the Middle East and North Africa: Mapping Capacity-building Efforts”, Stokholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), November 2018; J. Harchaoui, Too Close for Comfort: How Algeria Faces the Libyan Conflict, Briefing Paper, Small Arms Survey, July 2018.

26 Conflict Armament Research (2016); Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019).

27 Herbert and Gallien (2020).

28 UN Security Council, Letter dated 22 February 2023 from the Panel of Experts on Mali…, cit.

29 T. Leggett, F. Patuel, A. Scalia, and P. Tinti, “Firearms Trafficking in The Sahel: Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment – Sahel”, UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2022.

30 M. Micallef et al., “Conflict, coping and Covid”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, April 2021.

31 A. Fereday, “Niger: Regional Migration and Gold Mining Consolidate as Smuggling to Libya Stagnates”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, July 2023.

32 M. Micallef, R. Horsley, and A. Bish, “The human conveyor belt broken – assessing the collapse of the human-smuggling industry in Libya and the central Sahel”, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, March 2019; Micallef, Mark, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019).

33 M. Micallef and M. Herbert, “Fragile States and Resilient Criminal Ecosystems - Human Smuggling and Trafficking Trends in North Africa and the Sahel”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, August 2022.

34 Fereday (2023); F. Berger, “Mali: Human Smuggling Resilient in the Face of Instability”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, June 2023.

35 M. Micallef et al. (2021).

36 Fereday (2023).

37 Fereday (2023); Berger (2023).

38 UN Security Council, “The Organization of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb”, List for Resolutions 1267 (1999) 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities, updated 7 May 2020; International Crisis Group, Islamist Terrorism in the Sahel: Fact or Fiction?, Africa Report no. 92, March 2005; International Crisis Group, Mali: Avoiding Escalation, Africa Report no. 189, July 2012; A. Thurston, Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020.

39 Lacher (2012); A. Ahmed, Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017.

40 W. Nasr, “Implications of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s New Leadership”, New Lines Institute, 8 February 2021.

41 Thurston (2020).

42 I. Briscoe, “Crime after Jihad: armed groups, the state and illicit business in post-conflict Mali”, Clingendael Institute, May 2014.

43 UN Security Council, “Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin”, List for Resolutions 1267 (1999) 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities, updated 4 October 2018.

44 UN Security Council, Letter dated 24 July 2023 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2023/549, 25 July 2023.

45 M. Herbert, “Lessons from Algeria on foreign terrorist fighters”, Institute for Security Studies, 4 December 2019; UN Security Council, ‘Letter dated 24 July 2023 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee…, cit.

46 M. Micallef and M. Herbert, “Largely fleeting and hardly convergent: Libyas crime-terror nexus”, in L. Paoli, C. Fijnaut, and J. Wouters (eds), The Nexus Between Organized Crime and Terrorism: Types and Responses, Cheltanham, Edward Elgar, 2022.

47 UN Security Council, Letter dated 13 February 2023 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities addressed to the President of the Security Council,’ S/2023/95, 13 February 2023.

48 UN Security Council, ‘Letter dated 24 July 2023 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee…, cit.

49 UN Security Council, Letter dated 28 December 2017 from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2017/1125, 28 December 2017.

50 A. Bish, “Soldiers of fortune: The future of Chadian fighters after the Libyan ceasefire”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, December 2021.

51 UN Security Council, Letter dated 7 February 2023 from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2023/93, 7 February 2023.

52 UN Security Council, Letter dated 28 December 2017 from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan…, cit.

53 UN Security Council,’ Letter dated 7 February 2023 from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan…, cit.

54 Herbert, Horsely, and Badi (2023).

55 Fereday (2023).

56 Ibid.; Herbert, Horsely, and Badi (2023).

57 International Crisis Group (ICG) (2020); F. Molenaar, A.-E. Ursu, J. Meester, and A. Hoffmann, A line in the sand: Roadmap for sustainable migration management in Agadez, CRU Report, Clingendael Institute, October 2017.

58 V. Stocker, “Inside Libya’s Wild West”, Atlantic Council, June 2014; Herbert and Gallien (2020); M. Herbert and E. Badi, Blessing And Curse: Petroleum profits, control and fragility in Libya, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, June 2022.

59 International Crisis Group (ICG), “Traversing the Tribal Patchwork of Libya’s South West”, Middle East and North Africa, 12 June 2017.

60 A. McCullough, L. Mayhew, and S. Opitz-Stapleton, with A. Abouka and D.M. Botto, “When Rising Temperatures Don’t Lead To Rising Tempers: Climate And Insecurity In Niger”, BRACED Knowledge Manager, October 2019; F. Wehrey, “Insecurity and Governance Challenges in Southern Libya”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2017; International Crisis Group (ICG) (2020).

61 de Balzac, Leggett, Ollivier, and Patuel (2022).

62 Herbert and Gallien (2020); J. Tubiana, C. Warin, and G.M. Saeneen, “Multilateral Damage. The impact of EU migration policies on central Saharan routes”, Clingendael Institute, September 2018; J. Scheele, “Ravens Reconsidered: Raiding and Theft Among Tubu-Speakers In Northern Chad”, African Studies Review, vol. 61, no. 3. September 2018; P. Tinti and T. Westcott, “The Niger-Libya corridor: Smugglers’ Perspective”, The Institute for Security Studies (ISS), 2016.

63 Herbert and Gallien (2020).

64 L.A. Ammour, “Regional Security Cooperation in the Maghreb and Sahel: Algeria’s Pivotal Ambivalence”, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, February 2012; Q. Hanlon and M. Herbert, “Border Security Challenges in the Grand Maghreb”, U.S. Institute of Peace, 2015.

65 Hanlon and Herbert (2015).

66 Such claims have been routinely detailed to the author in interviews with government officials in Mali, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya between 2014 and 2023.

67 J. Cohen, J. K. Mills, and L. McKay, “Building Regional Border Security: Cooperation Lessons from the Maghreb”, Peace Brief 214, US Institute of Peace, September 2016.

68 M. Ouhemmou, “Tense Neighbors, Algeria and Morocco Have Divergent Migration Histories”, Migration Policy Institute (MPI), 18 May 2023.

69 A. Boukhars, “Barriers Versus Smugglers: Algeria and Morocco’s Battle for Border Security”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 19 March 2019.

70 Ibid.; M. Herbert, “The Challenge of Coordinating Border Management Assistance between Europe and the Maghreb”, Migration Policy Institute (MPI), March 2022.

71 Ammour (2012); Hanlon and Herbert (2015).

72 A. Lebovich, “Bringing the desert together: How to advance Sahel-Maghreb integration”, The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), July 2017.

73 UN Security Council, Letter dated 13 February 2023 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee…, cit.

74 Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019); UN Security Council, “Letter dated 3 August 2022 from the Panel of Experts on Mali established pursuant to resolution 2374 (2017) addressed to the President of the Security Council”, S/2022/595, 3 August 2022.

75 “Monitoring the Political Economy of Human Smuggling in Libya and the Sahel”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, May 2020.

76 Micallef, Farrah, Bish, and Tanner (2019); E. Beevor, “JNIM in Burkina Faso: a strategic criminal actor”, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, August 2022.

77 Micallef et al. (2021).

78 Herbert, Horsely, and Badi (2023).

79 Herbert (2019).

80 M. Micallef and M. Herbert, “Largely fleeting and hardly convergent: Libyas crime-terror nexus”…, cit.

81 M. Herbert, Securing and stabilising borders in North and West Africa, Policy Brief 155, Institute for Security Studies (ISS), December 2020.

82 Herbert and Gallien (2020); Tubiana and Gramizzi (2018).

83 Tubiana and Gramizzi (2018); International Crisis Group (ICG) (2020); M.A. Gain, “Maghreb-Sahel Security (Dis)connections: Shifting Dynamics and Growing Challenges”, Sada, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 12 May 2021.

84 J. Cohen, J.K. Mills, and L. McKay, Building Regional Border Security: Cooperation Lessons from the Maghreb, Peace Brief 214, US Institute of Peace, 19 September 2016.

85 Herbert (2019).

86 M. Micallef and M. Herbert, “Largely fleeting and hardly convergent: Libyas crime-terror nexus”…, cit.

6. A Divided Maghreb: Political Implications for Europe

Eduard Soler i Lecha

The effects of the divisions and tensions within the Maghreb reverberate far beyond its borders, extending their reach to neighbouring regions. Europe and the Sahel stand as the most vulnerable to the destabilising consequences of these internal fault lines. Should this situation radically improve, neighbours would also be among those benefitting the most from a Maghreb in which cooperation and de-escalation replace competition and conflict as the driving force of regional geopolitics. For the last two decades expert seminars, reports and publications have been devoted to the “cost of the ‘non-Maghreb’”.87 Yet, the mounting tensions in the Maghreb seem to be increasing this cost and stirring a new discussion on an old topic.

While the countries of the Sahel possess limited leverage in influencing the Maghreb, the European Union (EU) and some of its member states have the capacities to play a more substantial role in persuading their Maghrebi counterparts to embrace a path of cooperation. Tragically, the longstanding impediment hindering Europe from harnessing this potential lies within its own ranks: the internal divisions among member states. The tensions within the Maghreb and the disunity among European governments have impeded cohesive efforts to foster greater cooperation across the Mediterranean, perpetuating a disheartening record of missed opportunities for stability and mutual prosperity.

This chapter aims to shed light on the significance of the connections between the Maghreb and Europe, emphasising the costs incurred due to the prevailing adverse situation. It will identify the missed opportunities resulting from these divisions and tensions while also highlighting the actors who, despite the overall losses, benefit from such circumstances. Understanding this diagnosis is crucial in envisioning an alternative future for the Maghreb and Euro-Maghreb relations, identifying the obstacles that need to be overcome for this vision to materialise, and exploring how the positive effects of such progress can extend beyond the Maghreb region.

Why Does It Matter?

The Maghreb, encompassing five states and a territory of disputed sovereignty (Western Sahara), holds significant geopolitical importance for Europe. Stretching across a vast expanse of North Africa, on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, the Maghreb plays host to a rich array of natural resources, including substantial reserves of gas, oil and phosphates. Moreover, the region possesses immense potential for renewable energy sources and green hydrogen. With a combined population of over 100 million people, the Maghreb is also a sizable market in between industrialised economies (Western Europe) and developing ones (Sub-Saharan Africa).

Geographically, the Maghreb holds a strategic position near Southern Europe, acting as a gateway between continents. The strait of Gibraltar, with just 14 kilometres separating Africa and Europe is one of the world’s most strategic chokepoints. To further grasp this proximity, it is worth remembering that the Canary Islands lie less than 100 kilometres off Africa’s mainland, while the Italian island of Lampedusa is approximately 140 kilometres away from Tunisia’s shores and Malta is situated 350 kilometres from Tripoli. Contrary to popular imagination, Barcelona and Rome are geographically closer to Algiers than they are to Paris.

These geographical proximities have the potential to foster robust economic cooperation and cultural and people-to-people exchanges, constituting a significant geopolitical asset. However, in the current context marked by divisions instability and migratory tensions, this proximity is often perceived as a liability, leading to a securitised interpretation of the concept of neighbourhood. Instead of being seen as opportunities for cooperation, the close geographical ties are viewed through a lens of heightened security concerns. The concept of proximity, once associated with the aspiration of establishing a ring of stable, well-governed and friendly countries, has now become entwined with risks and challenges. Therefore, seen from European capitals, the Maghreb finds itself enveloped in a metaphorical “ring of fire”, alongside other regions grappling with instability and conflict.

The historical legacies of France, Italy and Spain loom large in the Maghreb and connect the two shores of the Mediterranean as strongly as geography does. The colonial pasts of these European powers have left enduring imprints, shaping relationships and perceptions between the regions. Lingering grievances and prejudices can limit Europe’s involvement in Maghrebi affairs, as such engagement is sometimes viewed as a continuation of neo-colonial dynamics. Navigating this complex historical backdrop poses a challenge for fostering productive relationships and cooperation.

While possessing vast resources and a strategic location, the region remains one of the least integrated in the world.88 Limited intra-regional trade, bureaucratic obstacles, and political tensions hinder the full exploitation of economic opportunities. In contrast, the Maghreb countries are highly embedded in Europe’s market, with Europe serving as the primary supplier and destination for imports. For instance, the EU is Morocco’s largest trade partner, accounting for 49% of its goods trade in 2022. 56% of Morocco’s exports went to the EU, and 45% of Morocco’s imports came from the EU. The EU is also Algeria’s biggest trade partner and accounts for the majority of Algeria’s international trade (around 50% in 2021) and Algeria stands as the third largest supplier of natural gas to Europe, an element that became even more relevant following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In comparison, the trade volume of Maghreb countries with emerging economies remains relatively small. For example, Morocco’s exports to Belgium surpass those to China, and its exports to Poland are twice as much as those to Russia. Similarly, Algeria’s exports to Greece account for 3.5% of its total exports, surpassing its exports to China (2.7%). Additionally, when it comes to imports, Maghreb countries face a considerable trade deficit with China.

People-to-people relations between the Maghreb and Europe contribute to this idea of proximity. Maghreb countries have a long history of emigration to Europe, resulting in established diasporas across the continent. This element, together with flows of tourists from Europe to the Maghreb, mainly Morocco and Tunisia, contributes to the idea that that relations are not only marked by proximity but familiarity too. Moreover, these diasporas have the potential to play a transformative role in pushing for cooperation within the Maghreb and between the Maghreb and Europe. Their cultural, economic and social ties can serve as bridges for understanding, dialogue, and collaboration.

A granular analysis of why the Maghreb matters to Europe, and vice versa, should not only take into consideration these four “connectors” (geography, history, economics and people-to-people relations) but should also recognise that not all Europe is evenly exposed to the Maghreb. Certain territories are geographically, historically and socially closer to the region. South-Western Europe, that is, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Malta, are the countries within Europe that have the most to lose in the event of a conflict-ridden Maghreb and the most to gain in a scenario of cooperation and stability. A shared diagnosis among them, coordinated actions and concerted strategies to shape decision-making in Brussels could translate into a more ambitious and impactful European policy towards the Maghreb or, at least, to make it a European priority.

Regional Rivalries: A Burden for the EU as Well

An intricate web of conflicts and rivalries shape the dynamics of the Maghreb, a sub-region nestled within the broader Middle East and North Africa security complex.89 Within this complex, the Maghreb boasts its own characteristics, encompassing a distinctive sub-regional security landscape. At its core, this sub-region is defined by the presence of two prominent sub-regional powers, Morocco and Algeria, whose rivalry serves as a potent driving force in shaping regional security dynamics90. Their competing interests and historical grievances have perpetuated tensions, hindering efforts towards cooperation and integration. Additionally, the protracted conflict over Western Sahara, going on since the 1970s, fuels this rivalry and is amplified by it, creating a vicious circle of tension. Furthermore, Libya, once poised to play a leading role in the Maghreb and even in the whole African continent, descended into a state of chaos and fragmentation during the tumultuous 2010s following the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and the collapse of the political transition three years later. The ensuing power struggles, proliferation of militias and failed attempts at establishing the country have further added to the complexities of the Maghreb’s regional landscape and exacerbated the insecurity nexus with the Sahel91.

In fact, the fractures that permeate the Maghreb extend beyond the region’s borders, drawing the countries of the Middle East into a complex web of “intersecting conflicts”92. Within this context, two notable fractures come to the fore. The first revolves around the clash between social forces advocating for change and those vested in preserving the status quo and regime security. In fact, the Maghreb played a central role during the Arab uprisings of 2011, and the struggle between these competing forces continues to reverberate. This is exemplified by the enduring strength of the Hirak movement in Algeria, which emerged in 2019 and ran parallel to simultaneous protests in Sudan, Iraq, and Lebanon. The second fracture can be characterised as a more traditional rivalry among regional powers. Countries such as Turkey, Qatar, Israel and the UAE have increased their influence in the Maghreb. The ongoing war in Libya, on the one hand, and the normalisation agreement between Morocco and Israel, on the other, have accelerated this process.

The conflicts and rivalries within the Maghreb are a major burden, primarily for the region’s citizens. But they have far-reaching implications for the EU and its member states too. As the Maghreb remains divided and mired in national or regional conflicts, it poses significant challenges and undermines the interests of the EU.

Morocco-Algeria and Western Sahara

This is the case, for instance, of the persisting Morocco-Algeria rivalry. Unresolved territorial claims, differing approaches to governance, and conflicting visions for regional leadership cemented the ongoing tensions between the two countries. This situation risks turning into some sort of regional cold war and one of its most worrying signs is the rise in defence budgets and arms sales.93

Under such circumstances, both Algiers and Rabat tend to view any progress in cooperation between the other and a third actor as a threat or a hostile move. This is key to understanding why regional tensions in the Maghreb are politically costly for Europeans. Recent bilateral crises, such as Spain’s tensions with both Morocco in 2021 and Algeria in 2022, serve as stark reminders of these costs. The EU and its member states have stakes in maintaining good relations with both countries. Navigating this complex situation requires delicate diplomatic skills and smart communication to prevent any actions from being perceived as favouring one side over the other.

Regarding Western Sahara, the EU has tried to limit its involvement, holding a minimalist position in which the mutual common denominator is rather low.94 The conflict in Western Sahara carries significant costs for the EU and its member states, both in material and immaterial terms. Materially, the EU and its member states are key donors of humanitarian aid to support the Sahrawi population, shouldering the responsibility of addressing the persistent needs of the affected communities. The European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid units and certain members of the European Parliament have therefore played a more prominent role on this issue than any other EU body.95 In any case, the lack of a clear prospect for resolving the conflict perpetuates this humanitarian burden, as the EU’s financial and humanitarian support becomes a permanent necessity.

The immaterial costs of the unresolved conflict, however, are even more substantial. The EU’s inability or unwillingness to actively engage in finding a resolution underscores the limits of its transformative and stabilising force in its southern neighbourhood. Fearful of the limited chances of success and the potential risks of failure or antagonising the parties involved, the EU has adopted a cautious approach, maintaining a low profile in this dispute. This cautious stance, while intended to avoid aggravating bilateral tensions with Maghrebi capitals, ultimately hampers the EU’s credibility and reputation. Moreover, as the conflict intensifies, it is increasingly difficult to remain passive because the parties expect and urge their partners to take a position. The King of Morocco made this clear when he said, in August 2022, that their position on the Sahara would be prism through which relations with partners would be assessed.96

The case of Spain exemplifies, once again, the political risks associated with the non-resolution of the conflict. As the former colonial power and host to significant Moroccan and Sahrawi diasporas, Spain is far more exposed than any other European countries to the ups and downs of this conflict.97 This has become very visible since 2021. Firstly, with the consequences of Moroccan retaliation against the secretive hospitalisation in Spain of Brahim Ghali – the leader of the Polisario Front – in the form of an unprecedented migratory crisis in Ceuta. Around 10,000 people, mostly underage Moroccan citizens, crossed the border and entered this tiny Spanish city enclaved in the North African coast within a day.98 Secondly, Pedro Sánchez’s decision to openly back the Moroccan Plan of Autonomy in the Western Sahara as an attempt to reconcile with Morocco in March 2022, which was not without costs. This decision harmed bilateral relations with Algeria and the Polisario Front but also had consequences in domestic politics. The Spanish government and the Socialist Party were isolated in defending this move in the Parliament. Not only opposition parties, but also the left-leaning parties that supported the government criticised this decision.

As for the EU, one of the main challenges will be the management of the final ruling of the European Court of Justice regarding the validity of the EU-Morocco agreements that include the Western Sahara, its natural resources and its products. In 2021 a first ruling went against Morocco’s interest, but it was appealed, thus buying Morocco and its European partners some time.99 Despite gestures of goodwill, should the final ruling be contrary to Morocco’s thesis, this could create major turbulence in Morocco-EU relations.

Libya

The conflict in Libya carries significant costs for the EU and its member states, with Italy, Malta, France and Greece particularly affected. In 2011, several European states played a major role in the international operation that led to the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. They also bear responsibility for the subsequent failure to stabilise the country afterwards, to the extent that some authors take the view that the EU has exported instability to Libya.100 European states have backed and relied on various factions within Libya. This strategy, mainly aimed at safeguarding their core interests in areas such as energy and migration, has unintentionally contributed to further fragmenting the country and exacerbating its instability.

The persistent instability and fragmentation in Libya, which intensified following the collapse of the political transition in 2014 and the subsequent presence of terrorist cells associated with ISIS, has diverted attention and resources from other priorities for the EU. The absence of a unified and functional government in Libya has also created a fertile ground for criminality, with its effects extending to Europe. The proliferation of illicit activities, including human trafficking and arms smuggling, not only poses security challenges for EU member states but also has a significant humanitarian impact.

Furthermore, the conflict in Libya has exposed the image of disunity among European states. Italy and France, being the two countries with the most leverage on Libyan actors, have rarely coordinated their actions, and in some instances, appeared to be competing in their policies towards this North-African country and clashing on how to deal with migratory flows. Greece’s preferential relations with Eastern Libya authorities, to counter Turkey’s influence in Western Libya and maritime deals between Tripoli and Ankara, have added to the plethora of national interests within the EU.

This lack of coordination and unity has hindered the EU from playing a significant role in resolving the conflict. Despite Germany’s efforts to address this situation through the Berlin Process, European states remain divided on their approach to Libya. As a result, the EU has been limited to launching minor missions focused on border and maritime control, lacking the ambition and strength needed to address the root causes of the conflict and contribute to a lasting solution.

Beyond the Maghreb: The Sahel

The instability and tension in the Maghreb have far-reaching consequences that extend beyond the region itself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Sahel, where the spill-over effects of the Maghreb’s conflicts have had a profound impact. The initial warning signs emerged in the conflict in Mali back in 2012, when armed groups and extremist organisations took advantage of the abundance of weapons and porous borders with post-Gaddafi Libya. Since then, the Sahel region has experienced a strengthening of criminal networks, increased arms smuggling and the proliferation of extremist and violent groups.

The repercussions of these developments are felt across the impoverished and vulnerable Sahel region. The rise in criminal activities, including drug trafficking, human trafficking and arms trade, exacerbates existing challenges such as poverty, governance deficits and weak state institutions. The Sahel has become a breeding ground for terrorism, fuelling regional instability and hindering efforts for development and prosperity.101 The citizens of the Sahel countries are obviously the ones that have the most to lose, but Europeans are also exposed, as some of these radical groups target European interests or nationals in the Sahel region. France is, by far, the most exposed country due to denser people-to-people relations and the presence of military troops in the area. The Maghreb countries themselves also suffer the effects of the looming insecurity and state fragility in the Sahel, as proved with the In Amenas hostage crisis in January 2013.102

The visible political costs of a fragmented and conflict-ridden Maghreb are exacerbated by the EU’s lack of unity and ambition in addressing the challenges. However, the true magnitude of the situation lies not only in the immediate costs but also in the many missed opportunities that result from this situation. The subsequent section will shed light on some of these missed opportunities, highlighting the potential benefits that could be realised if the Maghreb were more stable and cooperative. By examining these unrealised prospects, a deeper understanding of the far-reaching implications of the region’s division and conflict emerges, emphasising the need for concerted efforts to address these issues and unlock the untapped potential for cooperation and development.

A Catalogue of Missed Opportunities for Both the EU and Maghreb Countries

Assessing the impact of persistent rivalries and unresolved conflicts in political terms is a complex task, particularly when compared to the more tangible economic aspects. While the potential gains from enhanced cooperation, stability and regional integration in the Maghreb may seem elusive, they are undeniably real.

It is within this context that this section delves into a comprehensive catalogue of missed opportunities, underpinned by the premise that a united, peaceful and cooperative Maghreb region would be positive for the EU. Such unity would bolster collaboration across a broad spectrum of thematic and regional priorities, thus challenging the deeply entrenched belief, rooted in historical legacies dating back to colonial times, that Europeans benefit from divisions among their southern partners.

This deeply ingrained prejudice is often reinforced by the observation that Maghreb partners engage in significantly more trade with the EU than among themselves. However, even from an economic standpoint, the notion that the EU benefits from these divisions is fundamentally flawed. There may be winners among certain individuals but, in aggregated terms, this is a negative-sum game for both Europeans and Maghrebis alike, meaning both regions are losing.

The economic losses resulting from the lack of development, reduced investment attractiveness and insufficient job creation in the Maghreb also entail political costs. Should the Maghreb provide its own citizens with better opportunities and prospects for the future, it would then reduce the risk of recurrent episodes of social unrest and instability. Functional borders that serve as gates for exchanges rather than expressions of political differences would be detrimental to criminal networks and cross-border smuggling, which often thrive in the context of political blockages. While many of these benefits are challenging to quantify, as they involve intangible concepts such as hope and the desire for change, their impact on the political landscape should be underestimated.

If the governments of the Maghreb set aside their differences and committed to genuine cooperation, the region could potentially become a laboratory for regional cooperation or even integration, joining other fruitful experiments in Europe, the Gulf and Southeast Asia. It is noteworthy that all Maghreb countries have formally committed to the ideal of regional integration in the Maghreb. The social and cultural affinities that exist within the region, as well as among the Maghrebi diasporas abroad, could also provide a strong social foundation for this political endeavour.

In the late 1980s, during a brief period of détente between Morocco and Algeria, the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) was established as an ambitious project aimed at emulating the EU. However, the AMU has achieved limited results and has been plagued by political obstacles since its inception.103 Nevertheless, it is easy to imagine that if these political impediments were to be overcome, the AMU or any successor organisation could be viewed as a preferred partner by the EU. In fact, the EU’s 2016 European Global Strategy explicitly expressed its support for cooperative regional orders,104 and this would hold even greater significance if such cooperation were fostered in its immediate vicinity.

By forging stronger partnerships, the Maghreb can better partner with the EU in tackling shared challenges in areas such as energy, decarbonisation, connectivity, digitalisation, migration and more. The Maghreb would benefit as the governments of the region would be able to leverage their collective resources and strengths. For example, enhanced energy cooperation among Maghrebi states and companies could lead to the development of a robust Maghreb-EU energy partnership, encompassing natural gas, electricity, renewable energy and green hydrogen. More broadly, an integrated Maghreb would have enough weight to be a preferential partner for the promotion of a wide range of transformative initiatives that are already part of the EU’s Green Deal, its digital agenda and the new push on infrastructures within the Global Gateway initiative. In hindsight, we could also speculate on whether an integrated Maghreb could have become a more relevant partner in fighting the effects of Covid-19 or manufacturing and distributing vaccines and medical equipment.

A united Maghreb emerges as an increasingly appealing prospect within the evolving international landscape, particularly as EU authorities express their commitment to a more geopolitical approach. Geopolitical thinking acknowledges the influence of geography on political decision-making. An integrated, prosperous and cooperative political entity comprising over 100 million inhabitants in Europe’s neighbouring southern region would rank among Europe’s foremost international partners. Its value would be considerable if cooperative instincts prevailed in the international system, but it would become even more significant in a scenario of intensified great power competition. In such a context, the EU would seek out reliable and substantial partners of significant influence. While five separate states may not individually meet these criteria, a united Maghreb certainly would, presenting a consolidated and weighty entity capable of collaborating effectively with the EU in pursuing strategic goals such as diversifying suppliers and near-shoring.105

Through unity and integration, the Maghreb has the capacity to transcend the transactional nature of the EU’s relationships with neighbouring countries. Instead of focusing solely on short-term gains and limited exchanges, a united Maghreb could foster a deeper and more comprehensive partnership with the EU. By aligning their political, economic, and social objectives, both regions could embark on a transformative journey of shared values, mutual trust, and long-term cooperation. This would involve moving beyond mere trade and security agreements and engaging in a more holistic and inclusive collaboration that encompasses areas such as education, culture, innovation and sustainable development.

A united Maghreb would naturally emerge as a key ally for the EU in championing multilateralism and cooperative solutions on the global stage, in the UN and elsewhere. With a shared commitment to collaborative approaches, the Maghreb and the EU could advocate for inclusive diplomacy, international cooperation and the pursuit of common goals. Both could nurture existing multilateral initiatives or promote new ones.

Enhanced unity and collaboration within the Maghreb would also strengthen its position as a powerful and influential actor in Africa. Currently, Algeria and Morocco compete for influence in areas such as security cooperation, infrastructure development and energy projects across the African continent.106 However, if the two powerhouses of the Maghreb could collaborate effectively in Africa, their impact would be amplified. This collaboration would reshape the EU’s perception of its Southern neighbours. Europe stands to gain the most from African development and suffer the most from persistent underdevelopment and security crises. If the Maghreb is perceived as a partner driving positive change, it would become an indispensable ally for Europeans. Importantly, this partnership would enable them to work together, alongside other like-minded forces in Africa, to promote peace, development, connectivity and sustainability.107

Similarly, a cooperative Maghreb could inject much-needed positive energy into Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. While Maghreb cooperation or integration alone cannot eliminate the major obstacles hindering successful collaboration in the region, it can serve as a beacon for others to follow. Moreover, in the face of ongoing tensions and conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean, a Euro-Maghrebi partnership could act as a laboratory for incubating ideas that could later be extended to the entire Mediterranean basin. This would mirror the historical precedent set in the early 1990s when the idea of a Euro-Maghreb partnership was first introduced by the Portuguese rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. It was only after the Oslo agreements that the scope expanded to embrace both Mediterranean basins – east and west – leading to the creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.108

In conclusion, the Maghreb region holds significant untapped potential for both itself and the EU. By overcoming persistent rivalries and embracing genuine cooperation, a united, prosperous and integrated Maghreb could become a valuable partner for the EU. Such a partnership would not only bring economic benefits but also foster political stability and social development. It would enable the Maghreb to play a more influential role in Africa, strengthen Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and align with the EU’s evolving geopolitical objectives.

The Spoilers: Who Benefits from the Current Paralysis?

The persistent lack of unity and fragmentation in the Maghreb region not only hinders its progress and potential but also serves the interests of certain actors who benefit from the status quo. In this section, we examine the beneficiaries of the current paralysis, shedding light on the diverse forces that exploit the divisions and may impede the path towards a united and cooperative Maghreb. It is worth noting that one of the main trends in regional geopolitics is the increase of global and regional actors that are actively present in the Maghreb, compete for influence and project their geopolitical ambitions in this area.109

From external powers seeking to exert influence on non-state actors thriving on instability, various actors find advantages in the perpetuation of discord in the Maghreb. Additionally, rentier elites, arms traders and geopolitical competitors all have their reasons for favouring the continued disunity. Understanding these dynamics is crucial in formulating strategies to bypass the spoilers and unlock the region’s true potential.

The current fragmentation in North Africa creates opportunities for international actors to exploit regional tensions and rivalries for their own benefit. Two notable actors that have capitalised on this situation are Russia and Israel. These actors leverage the divisions to consolidate and substantiate bilateral relations, particularly in the realm of security and defence. The bilateral relationships between Morocco and Israel, on the one hand, and between Algeria and Russia, on the other, serve as prime examples of this dynamic. In the case of Israel, the United States (US) support for the normalisation agreements with Arab countries led to a significant development as Donald Trump made a dual announcement, presenting the prospect of Israel-Morocco normalisation and the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara. This pivotal moment marked the initiation of a new era in Morocco-Israel bilateral relations, characterised by official visits and robust cooperation in the realm of security and defence. Consequently, this served to strengthen Algiers’ resolve to enhance its military cooperation with other strategic partners, including Russia and China. Arms sales, diplomatic supports and intelligence cooperation allow these actors to enhance their influence in Maghrebi capitals.

More broadly, geopolitical rivals of the EU who perceive Europe’s weakness as an advantage are also winners in a scenario of fragmentation and division in the Maghreb. European governments and societies can be destabilised by insecurities originating or passing from the Maghreb and it also diverts efforts and resources from other strategic priorities. Consequently, the perpetuation of intra-Maghreb rivalries inadvertently serves the interests of Europe’s geopolitical rivals, whether they actively exploit the situation or simply benefit from it.

The beneficiaries of the current status quo in the Maghreb also include a range of transnational criminal groups, human traffickers, arms smugglers and violent non-state actors. These actors thrive on an environment of disunity and fragmentation, taking advantage of weak governance structures and porous borders. A united and coordinated Maghreb, with strong law enforcement cooperation, would pose a significant challenge to these illicit activities. By pooling their resources and coordinating their efforts, the law enforcement actors of a united Maghreb would be better equipped to tackle these challenges effectively. Such coordinated action would undoubtedly receive Europe’s support, as the security of Europe itself is compromised by the activities of these criminal networks. Moreover, it is important to recognise that disunity and lack of coordination also result in lower levels of development and economic opportunities in the region. Exploiting people’s despair, these criminal and violent actors recruit individuals into their illicit activities. Therefore, a united and prosperous Maghreb not only strengthens security cooperation but also undermines the breeding grounds for transnational criminality and violence.

Within the Maghreb, certain political and economic elites have become entrenched and benefit from the privileged position afforded by the current status quo. These elites, including factions within the security apparatus, have leveraged the fragmented environment to consolidate their political, economic and social power. Integration within the Maghreb poses a direct threat to their position, as it would promote greater transparency, accountability and fair competition. While benefitting most of society, particularly entrepreneurs, this would challenge monopolies and the exclusive privileges of politically connected elites. Consequently, these actors, driven by their aversion to change and their desire to preserve their privileges, could try to undermine processes of reconciliation and integration if they feel that the status quo is under threat.

Furthermore, certain European actors, including governments and business groups, have also capitalised on the divisions within the Maghreb for their own interests. Once again, arms exporters have the most to gain from such a situation. What is more, at times, European governments and companies have seen opportunities in the bilateral crises between Maghreb countries and fellow European nations. However, while these actions may provide short-term benefits to some, they are ultimately short-sighted. The potential advantages of a united and functional Maghreb market, capable of attracting investments and fostering talent, far outweigh the temporary gains derived from exploiting divisions. Moreover, this approach of unhealthy cooperation among Europeans, based on taking advantage of partners’ weaknesses and challenges, can easily backfire when tables turn. Those who currently benefit from such dynamics may find themselves on the receiving end when their own vulnerabilities are exploited by others.

Initiating and Incentivising a New Dynamic of Cooperation

The Maghreb region’s strategic location, rich natural resources and potential for economic cooperation give it immense geopolitical importance for Europe. The prevailing divisions and tensions within the Maghreb have far-reaching implications that extend beyond its borders, impacting neighbouring regions and the EU. This chapter has shed light on the significance of the connections between the Maghreb and Europe, emphasising the costs incurred due to the prevailing adverse situation and identifying the missed opportunities resulting from these divisions and rivalries.

European policymakers face crucial choices in shaping the future relationship between the EU and the Maghreb. While the challenges are complex, passivity is not an option. Three paths lie ahead: (1) Disagree with the presented diagnosis and bet on the idea that a disunited Maghreb creates opportunities for the EU; (2) Agree with the diagnosis and opt for a mitigation and damage-control strategy, recognising the limitations in changing key actors’ preferences; or (3) Embrace a policy review, overcoming inertia and bypassing vested interests, to actively promote concrete proposals for a more cooperative and integrated Maghreb.

Sharing a diagnosis of the current situation and agreeing on the destination is the first step and this chapter aims to contribute to reaching this stage. However, this is not the end of the process. Subsequently, European policymakers must be confident and imaginative, in order to incubate – in conjunction with Maghrebi governments and experts, and stakeholders from both shores of the Mediterranean – concrete initiatives that encourage dialogue, foster economic cooperation and support conflict resolution. Avoiding frustrations is key and, in that respect, it is essential to reiterate that overcoming inertia will be neither easy nor quick, and that the EU’s actions alone will not resolve all conflicts and tensions in the region. But despite all the limitations, the EU can still play a constructive role in initiating and incentivising a new dynamic and fostering a culture of cooperation. One of the many reasons for which it should do so, is that actively promoting cooperation in and with the Maghreb, would bolster the EU’s own security and prosperity, while also contributing to the development and progress of the region. Making it clear that this is not only in the interest of the Maghreb but also the EU can help convey the message that this engagement is sincere, genuine and sustainable.

87 Among the pioneers, see the programmes of the two international conferences on the “Cost of the No-Maghreb” hosted by Toledo International Center for Peace (CITpax) and IEMed, coordinated by F. Ghilès, G.C. Hufbauer and C. Brunel, Maghreb regional and global integration: A dream to be fulfilled, Peterson Institute, 2008.

88 See, among others A. Kireyev et al., “Economic Integration in the Maghreb: An Untapped Source of Growth”, Policy Paper, International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2019.

89 On the concept of regional security complex see B. Buzan and O. Wæver, Regions and Powers. The Structure of International Security, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003 and on its applicability to the MENA region, including the Maghreb, see R.A. Del Sarto, H. Malmvig, and E. Soler i Lecha, “Interregnum: The Regional Order in the Middle East and North Africa after 2011”, MENARA Final Reports, no. 1, CIDOB, February 2019.

90 D. Lounnas and N. Messari, “Algeria-Morocco Relations and their Impact on the Maghrebi Regional System”, MENARA Working Paper, no. 10, CIDOB, 2018.

91 L. Martinez and R.A. Boserup, “Beyond Western Sahara, the Sahel-Maghreb Axis Looms Large”, in R. Ojeda-Garcia, I. Fernández-Molina, and V. Veguilla (eds.), Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 143-63.

92 On the idea of “intersecting conflicts” see J. Hiltermann, Tackling the MENA Region’s Intersecting Conflicts, International Crisis Group (ICG), 22 December 2017.

93 See H. Amirah-Fernández, “The Maghreb: Regional Disintegration and the Risks of the Zero-Sum Logic”, Commentary, ISPI, 14 June 2023.

94 See, among others, J. Vaquer i Fanés, “The European Union and Western Sahara”, European Foreign Affairs Review, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 93-113; R. Gillespie, “European Union responses to conflict in the Western Mediterranean”, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 2010, pp. 85-103; and I. Fernández-Molina, “The EU, the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Western Sahara Conflict: Executive Continuity and Parliamentary Detours”, in D. Bouris and T. Schumacher (eds.), The Revised European Neighbourhood Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 219-38.

95 M.L. Grande-Gascón and S. Ruiz-Seisdedos, “The EU’s Reluctant Engagement with the Western Sahara Conflict: Between Humanitarian Aid and Parliamentary Involvement”, in R. Ojeda-Garcia, I. Fernández-Molina, and V. Veguilla (eds.), Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of Western Sahara’s Protracted Decolonization: When a Conflict Gets Old, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 79-98.

96 “Roi: Le dossier du Sahara est le prisme à travers lequel le Maroc évalue les amitiés et les partenariats” Hespress, 20 August 2022.

97 For a broader analysis of Spain’s foreign policy and its focus on the Maghreb see E. Soler i Lecha and P. Morillas, “Middle Power with Maghreb Focus: A Spanish Perspective on Security Policy in the Southern Neighbourhood”, Fredrich Ebert Stiftung, 2020.

98 E. Soler i Lecha, “Morocco vs Spain: why it matters for the EU”, EUObserver, 7 June 2021.

99 On the 2021 situation see, among others, H. Lovatt, “Western Sahara, Morocco, and the EU: How good law makes good politics”, Commentary, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) 30 September 2021.

100 M. Eljarh, “Is Europe Exporting Instability to the Southern Mediterranean? Libya as a Case Study”, in Euromed Survey - Changing Euro-Mediterranean Lenses, Barcelona, IEMed, December 2020, p. 78-82.

101 D. Ghanem (ed.), “The Sahel: Europe’s African Borders”, Joint Policy Study, EuroMeSCo. 2018.

102 F. Ghilès, “Algerian Gas’ Challenges after the Attack on In Amenas”, Notes Internacionals, no. 70, CIDOB, March 2023.

103 On the failures of the Arab Maghreb Union and, more broadly, regionalism in the Maghreb see M. Hernando de Larramendi, “Doomed regionalism in a redrawn Maghreb? The changing shape of the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco in the post-2011 era”, The Journal of North African Studies, vol. 24, no. 3, 2019, p.506-31.

104 European Union, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe a Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, 2016, pp. 32-34.

105 E. Soler i Lecha and M. Valls, “Spain and the Maghreb: neighbourhood, nearshoring and the post-pandemic”, Notes Internacionals, no. 253.

106 See, among others, I. Werenfels, “Maghrebi Rivalries Over SubSaharan Africa”, SWP Comment, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), no. 54, 19 November 2020; and A. Dworkin, “A return to Africa: Why North African states are looking south”, ECFR Policy Brief, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), 3 July 2020.

107 For further elaboration see E. Soler i Lecha, “The Maghreb and the European bid for Africa”, Notes Internacionals no. 228, CIDOB, March 2020.

108 P. Morillas and E. Soler i Lecha, “The EU’s Framing of the Mediterranean (1990-2002): Building a Euro-Mediterranean Partnership”, MedReset, Working Paper no. 2, April 2017.

109 See V. Talbot and D. Ghanem, “Shifting Balances in the Mena Region: Russia and China No Longer Behind the Scenes”, Commentary, ISPI, 14 June 2023; and E. Soler i Lecha, “Gulf Rivalries Reach North Africa”, in IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2018, Barcelona, IEMed, 2018. p. 53-57.

About the Authors

Miguel Hernando de Larramendi is Full Professor of History of the Contemporary Arab World at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain, where he leads the Study Group on Arab and Muslim Societies (GRESAM).  His research deals with political systems and international relations of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with a focus on North Africa. His articles have been published in journals such as Mediterranean Politics, Journal of North African Studies, Contemporary Politics and Revista de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos. Among others books, he has co-edited Cambio, crisis y movilizaciones en el Mediterráneo occidental (2022).

Intissar Fakir is a Senior Fellow and Director of Middle East Institute’s (MEI) North Africa and Sahel program. She is an expert on North Africa, the Sahel, and key regional thematic issues including governance, social change, migration, and security. She has written extensively on North Africa’s evolving politics including Islamist electoral politics in post-2011 Morocco and Tunisia, the Western Sahara issue, foreign policy priorities in Morocco and the broader region, and the impact of Covid-19 on regional political stability. Prior to joining MEI, Intissar was a Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has also implemented programs at various NGOs in support of political, economic and social reform in the North Africa and the Middle East. She has consulted and advised governments and corporate entities in the US and Europe on Maghreb developments. She is the author of numerous reports, articles, and book chapters on the region and has been published in foreign policy journals and newspapers.

Irene Fernández-Molina is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom. Her research deals with international relations and foreign policy in the Global South, conflicts and constructivist IR theory, with a regional focus on the Maghreb, as well as EU foreign policy and Euro-Mediterranean relations. Her articles have appeared in journals such as International Studies Review, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Review of International Studies, International Political Sociology and Mediterranean Politics. She is also the author of Moroccan Foreign Policy under Mohammed VI, 1999-2014 (2016).

Francis Ghilès is a leading consultant on North African and Western Mediterranean affairs whose focus is emerging energy trends (gas and renewables) and how they interact with the security and political priorities of Western Mediterranean states and others such as Turkey, the United States, Russia and China. He graduated at the University of Grenoble and earned a postgraduate degree at St Antony’s College (Oxford). He is a visiting fellow at King’s College London; senior associate researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and a member of the Frontier Energy Team. A former writer on financial markets and North Africa Correspondent of the Financial Times, he also contributes to the BBC World Service.

Matt Herbert is a Senior Expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s North Africa and Sahel Observatory. He specializes in the study of transnational organized crime, state fragility and stabilization. He also researches and advises on policy responses to these issues, including targeted financial sanctions, security sector reform/governance, and state-community engagement. Prior to the Global Initiative, he worked as a policy aide to the governor of New Mexico and on organized crime dynamics on the US–Mexico border, as well as consulted throughout North and East Africa and the Sahel on informal and illicit markets, stabilization and security challenges. He has authored numerous articles, reports and book chapters.

Aldo Liga is a Research Fellow for the MENA Centre at ISPI. He is also PhD Candidate at the Institut français de géopolitique (University of Paris 8). He holds a Bachelor’s in Political Sciences from the “Cesare Alfieri” (University of Florence) and a Master’s in International Security from Sciences Po Paris. Aldo’s research interests include political and economic challenges in North Africa, energy transition, food security, and mixed migration flows through the Mediterranean. Before joining ISPI, he worked in various capacities for public institutions, international organisations, and NGOs (Italian Trade Agency, French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, IMPACT Initiatives, European Commission, Engie).

Raquel Ojeda-García is Senior Lecturer in Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Granada, Spain. Her research focuses on political decentralisation in Morocco, the political system of Mauritania, natural resources in Western Sahara and local public management. Her articles have been published in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Journal of Modern African Studies, Nationalities Papers and Journal of North African Studies. She is also the author of books and book chapters published by Palgrave, Routledge, Edinburgh University Press, La Catarata, CIS, Comares, Tirant lo Blanch, Seuil and Bellaterra.

Eduard Soler i Lecha is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and holds the position of Senior Research Associate at CIDOB (Barcelona Centre for International Affairs). His primary research areas encompass geopolitics, foresight, European and Spanish foreign policies, as well as the dynamics of cooperation and conflict in the Middle East and North Africa. He regularly contributes to academic publications, media outlets and think tank reports and policy-papers.

Haneen Zeglam is a PhD student at University College London’s (UCL) Political Science Department and a Non-Resident Fellow of the Middle East Institute (MEI). Her research focuses primarily on political attitudes and behaviour across North Africa post-2011, but her interests also span many of the other political, social and economic trends across the Maghreb and the Sahel. Some of her most recent work has been on the development of renewable energy across the Middle East and the evolving forms of environmental politics and activism across the region in the wake of COP27 and COP28. Prior to joining UCL, she worked on the MEI’s North Africa and Sahel Program as a Research Assistant and Program Coordinator. She holds degrees in Social and Political Science from the University of Cambridge (BA) and Middle Eastern Studies (MPhil) from the University of Oxford.