Sink or swim: Can the AMU overcome rifts to realise its massive potential?

Symbol of potential

Shortly after its founding, the AMU was seen as the region's greatest achievement and a symbol of its potential for global power and promising progress.

The Maghreb is located near Europe and bordered by the Mediterranean Sea in the north, the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the African Sahel in the south, and the Middle East in the east.

Modelled on the European common market, the AMU initially attracted broad support. The idea for regional unity was backed by politicians, intellectuals, media professionals, artists, athletes, businessmen and ordinary citizens alike.

Hopes were even higher for what could be achieved on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, where cultural links between nations were stronger than across the sea. The AMU's countries shared deeper connections, including language, customs and heritage, alongside their shared history.

And there was a strong desire for a regional bloc capable of playing a more significant role on the global stage and in the Arab, Islamic, and African worlds.

It was a time when new currents were emerging, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and wider changes that were causing economic, political, and military alliances.

Read more: How the Soviet Union collapse impacted the Arab world

Royal boost

At the end of the 1980s, general relations between Arab states had improved, helping the mood in regional politics. It reached Morocco and Algeria, who saw each other as competitors despite sharing cultural and historical ties.

An exchange of visits between Morocco's King Hassan II and Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid helped resolve the shadow of previous crises and create a climate of trust. It led to unprecedented cooperation despite the differences between the two countries.

Land borders between them were reopened. Tourism and bilateral travel were revived, and important economic and trade agreements were reached.

They included the construction of a gas pipeline to link the Algerian desert and Spain through northern Morocco and the Mediterranean – hitherto the most significant form of regional economic cooperation. The French daily Le Monde called it a "Moroccan-Algerian honeymoon."

Saudi Arabia, led by the late King Fahd bin Abdulaziz, was influential in fostering trust between the two leaders as they agreed to cooperate despite their ideological differences. The king and the president were in Mecca for Umrah and shook hands at the gate of Kaaba.

This was followed by the Oujda summit on the Moroccan-Algerian border. King Hassan II then participated in the Zeralda summit, hosted in Algeria in 1988 and designed to express Arab solidarity as a new world order was formed.  

President Bendjedid made more than one visit to Morocco, some of which were hunting trips in the Atlas Mountains, where he and the king could avoid journalists, politicians and the Algerian military.

Domino effect

The strengthening of Moroccan-Algerian relations made it easier to resolve some of the complex issues of the Middle East. It helped end the civil war in Lebanon and paved the way for establishing the AMU.

As the improvement held, the moves toward a regional union progressed. The bloc was seen as an ideal way to give the Maghreb a more prominent voice in the Middle East and on the world stage.

The AMU also gave its members more weight in dealing with what was then the European Economic Community — the precursor to the EU, made up of 12 countries after the accession of Spain, Portugal, and Greece.

The late Libya leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was passionate about regional unity and sought membership of the AMU — especially after he was accused of orchestrating the Lockerbie Bombing when a device on board a US passenger plane brought it down on Scotland, and sanctions were applied to Libya.

Gaddafi froze all support for separatist and terrorist movements in the Arab, Maghreb, and African regions, and even in Spain and Britain, to show goodwill to avoid additional Western sanctions. He also reinstated Tunisian workers whom he had expelled during his disagreements with Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's late president.

Gaddafi's green pen

When Gadaffi signed Libya up to the AMU – originally known as Greater Maghreb Union – in Marrakech in February 1989, he used a green pen. It was an attempt to stand out rather than a show of doubt or disagreement.

The international press ran pictures of the five leaders –  Hassan II, Chadli Bendjedid, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Gaddafi, and Maaouya Ould Taya – holding hands and smiling.  It was the culmination of an idea with deep roots that had, until then, never been fully realised.

In modern history, thoughts of a union date back to 1917 with the Charter of the North African Conference, which developed into the North African Star Party in 1926, and then the Union of Maghreb States designed in 1958 at a conference in Tangier.

But the concept goes much deeper into the past than that. Some believe that the idea of a Maghreb union dates to the Almohad State in the 11th century, which helped liberate Jerusalem from the Crusaders in the Battle of Hattin, following military cooperation between Salah Al-Din al-Ayyubi and the Sultan of Marrakesh, Abu Yusuf Yacoub Al-Mansur.

The AMU developed deeper international ties and replaced previous agreements, including bilateral accords between its members. It brought in new institutions, including the Presidency Council, the Rabat-based General Secretariat, the Shura Council, or Maghreb Parliament, the Judicial Committee, the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Follow-up Committee, and the Council of Central Bank Governors.

Other executive bodies were concerned with the economy, development, sports, culture, women, agriculture, energy, and tourism.

Obstacles to stability

The AMU's primary focus was on security and stability, alongside achieving prosperity for the people. This helped pave the way for the gradual economic unification via integration and cooperation designed to culminate in a common Maghreb market, a customs union, a free-trade area, and a Maghreb Bank for Trade and Investment Finance.

The AMU also sought to preserve the independence and security of the region's countries while boosting their development. A major means of doing this was to prevent territorial disagreements between members, eliminate regional conflict and contribute to global security.  

In the early 1990s, the AMU faced the outbreak of civil war in Algeria — the largest Maghreb nation — following the cancellation of general elections believed to have been won by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS).

The security situation in this key AMU member state significantly deteriorated. The army entered an open war with Islamist movements.

The problems proved long-lasting.

What followed became known as the Black Decade, which left 250,000 people dead, including politicians, media professionals, artists, and intellectuals.

Even President Mohamed Boudiaf – a historic leader of the National Liberation Front (FLN) who was brought from Morocco by the FLN to end the catastrophic situation – was assassinated, reportedly at the behest of the People's Army, led at the time by General Khaled Nizar, who seemingly wanted to abort plans to negotiate with the Islamists.

The situation continued to worsen until Abdelaziz Bouteflika won his first term election in 1999 and launched a national reconciliation dialogue.

The Arab Spring

But the AMU was to face even greater challenges after the 2011 Arab Spring, following the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine of Tunisia, the killing of Gaddafi of Libya, and the uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan.

By then, the bloc had already failed to live up to its hopes and ambitions. A lack of high-level meetings had preceded the wave of uprisings and revolutions that swept through the Arab world, including in Libya.

With the turmoil came a lingering rise in tensions between Morocco and Algeria.

The demise of the AMU – which is now widely agreed to be, in effect, dormant – has had social and political ramifications alongside the political ones.  It once again defines their relations, not least resurrecting the territorial dispute between them over the Western Sahara. 

The decline of an ideal

Despite its ideal geographic location, the Arab Maghreb Union missed a key opportunity to become a regional power in the southern Mediterranean during the time of globalisation when many global supply chains were being offshored and developing countries could develop their manufacturing sectors.

It is estimated that the cost of the lost opportunity has been at least 3% per year of the size of the region's economy as identified by the gross domestic product of its members. That amounts to tens of billions of dollars — not least in investment flows it could have attracted as a common market and a customs union.

Over the last three-and-a-half decades, growth and development rates among the five AMU nations varied considerably.

Morocco led the way, helped by political stability, which powered its economy despite lacking an energy sector. In Algeria and Libya — both oil states — there has been civil war, other forms of armed conflict and political turmoil that has hobbled economic development.

According to Statista, the German data tracker, the rankings will shuffle by 2028. Gross output in Algeria is expected to rise to $262bn by 2028, with about $200bn in Morocco, about $61bn in Tunisia, $49bn in Libya, and $13bn in Mauritania.

According to estimates, the GDP in the Maghreb countries will rise to $585bn, with a per capita income of about $5,400 over the next four years. However, the region-wide GDP of Maghreb GDP would have reached $1tn if the AMU had sustained its path towards economic integration without faltering.

Intractable problems

The biggest disagreement in the region is Algeria's opposition to Morocco's sovereignty over the Western Sahara and its arming of the separatist Polisario Front – Algeria makes its first cause even at the expense of development spending.

Saghour Hichem, a researcher at Algeria's Relizane University, blames the stalemate on Algeria. 

"Algeria hasn't responded to a Moroccan proposal for granting autonomy to the southern Moroccan provinces (Western Sahara) as a compromise to end a conflict that doesn't benefit the region but exhausts it," he said.

But he also points out that the problems go beyond that. Algeria adheres to the "sanctity" of borders inherited from colonialism, while Morocco stands by its historical right to reclaim its usurped lands.

Algeria is wary of subsequent Moroccan claims in Tindouf and Bechar of the Eastern Sahara, which belonged to Morocco until the middle of the 20th century.

According to documents from the French Archives of Overseas Colonies dated 1926, the area of the Kingdom of Morocco under French protection was estimated at 600,000 km2, while the area of French Algeria was estimated at 500,000 km2.

Parts of Morocco were carved out following the 1880 Berlin Conference on the Partition of Africa, which allowed Spain to occupy Sidi Ifni, Tarfaya, Saguia El-Hamra, and Oued Ed-Dahab in southern Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1969, Madrid returned part of that territory to Moroccan sovereignty. In November 1975, it handed over the Western Sahara to Morocco following a mass protest known as the Green March. This tripartite agreement in Madrid was also signed by Mauritania.

The Spanish government supports Morocco's rights in the Western Sahara, saying that the autonomy of those provinces is the best solution politically, economically, and in the interest of all parties.

Algeria was angered by Spain's positions, accusing it of having a pro-Morocco bias. In retaliation, it cut off the gas flow to Europe but later backed down under European pressure.

The current Algerian government benchmarks its foreign relations with more or less every state in terms of positions taken on the Western Sahara.

That is why it has cold relations with the Gulf states and about 30 African countries that opened consulates in Laayoune and Dakhla in the Western Sahara.

A question of identity

Algeria's former president, the late Houari Boumediene, used to say that "history confirms geography; monarchy is dangerous to the revolution."

This basically meant he opposed any idea of a political union among Maghreb states, fearing that Algeria would be overtaken by Morocco's historically-rooted ambitions.

This was true before the arrival of French colonialism in 1832. However, since the 1960s and independence, Algeria's policy has been defined by political caution toward its neighbours. It has sought to preserve the legacy of its revolution and the armed struggle that took it to independence.

On its part, Morocco roots its national legitimacy in its historical glories, channelling its past into a source of self-confidence, especially for younger generations.

These two intractable approaches have restricted the ability for broader cooperation within the AMU. The regional bloc —which once held so much promise — now faces a bleak future.