Algerian President Tebboune mediates with his Tunisian counterpart Saied (right) and the head of the Libyan Presidential Council, Mohamed Menfi (Algeria International Channel)
Algeria -
The Algerian presidency announced in a statement last Sunday that President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, his Tunisian counterpart Kais Saied, and the head of the Libyan Presidential Council, Mohamed Younes Menfi, held a tripartite meeting to review the outcomes of the seventh summit of heads of state and government of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum.
The presidents also discussed the prevailing conditions in the Maghreb region, and the meeting concluded with the need to intensify and unify efforts to confront the economic and security challenges in a way that will benefit the peoples of the three countries positively, according to the same source.
It was decided to hold a tripartite Maghreb summit meeting at the presidential level every three months to “coordinate frameworks of partnership and cooperation,” with the first being in Tunisia after the holy month of Ramadan.
This decision raises questions from observers regarding the reasons for the newly created summit between the three countries and the priority files in their discussions expected soon. Is it a practical attempt to formulate a new Maghreb Union or a neutral desire to deepen integration?
Mutual dependency
In his reading of the backgrounds of this regional decision, Hamza Hossam, professor of international relations at the University of Algiers - 1, said, “We may be embarking on a project for a partnership that aspires to regional integration that will enhance the weight and power of the three countries in the future, especially in front of international partners, especially the European ones.”
Hossam explained - in a statement to Al Jazeera Net - that every effective partnership between the Maghreb countries would increase their immunity in the face of penetration efforts, strain inter-relations, and divert them from their cooperative path.
It is believed that the main driver of the tripartite initiative is the state of mutual security dependency, arising from its direct geographical proximity.
He adds that this situation has created a security interdependence and similarity in the challenges faced by Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, and it seems that the awareness has been strengthening among decision-makers of the necessity of strengthening the response to this reality in a joint manner, according to similar visions that may unite in the future.
The political analyst expects that this vision will lead, over time, to two desired results: building trust more solidly, and extending bridges of cooperation between the three countries into the commercial field and opening markets, in search of establishing a true Maghreb integration project.
Hossam said that this trend is what Algeria is looking to build, through the free trade zones that it announced its establishment with Tunisia and Libya.
He believes that the statement of the Libyan Minister of Interior, when he met his Algerian counterpart on the occasion of the meeting of interior ministers of Arab countries in Tunisia last week, also confirms Libya’s desire to control the security of its borders and provide the necessary conditions for launching the free trade zone project with Algeria.
Challenges
However, the security challenges facing Libya, the state of almost chronic instability it suffers from, as well as the lack of a clear economic equation for surpluses and shortfalls between the economies of the three countries, will constitute the first and biggest challenge facing this project, in the opinion of academic Hossam.
In parallel, the same speaker stresses that the security challenges that Tunisia and Algeria will face - due to the Libyan situation - are what should be studied and their consequences carefully determined.
For his part, expert on Maghreb and African relations, Bouhania Qawi, confirmed that the leaders of Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya still believe in the Maghreb Union as a regional bloc.
He added - in a statement to Al Jazeera Net - that the provisions of the Maghreb Union fully encourage collective cooperation, and therefore this tripartite step would “revive hope for joint Maghreb action despite the presence of political and historical differences.”
Bouhania believes that Algeria is moving towards strengthening relations between these three countries without neglecting to develop Algerian-Mauritanian relations, especially after the opening of the land crossing, which makes the tripartite meeting a very important step in strengthening Maghreb cooperation.
He explains that cooperation between any two Maghreb countries comes in itself as part of an effort to support the Maghreb bloc.
This is evidenced by the situation of the European Union countries, where there is a discrepancy in the volume of trade between its components within one European bloc, because cooperation between two countries differs from overall cooperation, and also the existence of an external European alliance despite the differences between countries in their strategies.
Bouhania views strengthening cooperation between Algeria and its two eastern neighbors in a positive light, especially when it is developed in the form of an actual economic bloc that eliminates customs tariffs and creates true free zones, which ultimately leads to the activation of Maghreb regional exchange and cooperation, even if at a minimum, between these three countries.
Conditions for success
On the other hand, Abdel Salam Filali, professor of political sociology at Annaba University, believes - given the nature of the stage - that the security file emerges as a top priority among the challenges facing these countries.
Filali said - to Al Jazeera Net - that what is happening in the Sahel countries means the tripartite initiative, as well as the internal Libyan security situation with the continuing state of division and the failure of the central institutions to control it as required, as the Security Council recently indicated when it expressed its concern about the increasing tensions, some of which it identified. With the "spread of armed militias."
He explains that the high priority of the security file prompts the introduction of initiatives in the form of a basis of national reconciliation - in his estimation - despite the difficulty that has existed for a long time as a result of the interference of international and regional forces in the Libyan affairs, which makes it self-evident that Libya’s interests are closer to the interests of neighboring countries.
Then comes the political file, which is very important for consolidating relations and establishing a new policy of cooperation in light of the regional and international challenges the region is witnessing, Filali adds.
Regarding the conditions for the success of this tripartite mechanism, he stressed that the availability of political will for coordination is very important to bring views closer and achieve common goals.
The same speaker asserts that there is a great deal of that determination, especially between Algeria and Tunisia, to the point of describing it as “an unprecedented rapprochement between them” that will certainly be strengthened in the coming years through Algeria’s economic initiatives towards neighboring countries.
The real stake for this mechanism, from the point of view of the professor of political sociology, is success in resolving the situation inside Libya, so that it can regain its balanced role in the region, given the capabilities it has.
Source: Al Jazeera