Rabat-Algiers: has the rivalry become a geopolitical whim?

In a world marked by intensifying crises, the Maghreb finds itself at a decisive turning point. The region can no longer remain locked into inherited rivalries, while the example of the European Union or Asean shows that no lastingly fragmented region can hope weigh in international balances without minimal mechanisms of cooperation and interdependence.

It is not a question here of naming culprits, but of noting that Morocco and Algeria have, at different times, favored positions and logics of rivalry to the detriment of construction régionale.

Le coût exorbitant de la mésentente

Today, normalization between Rabat and Algiers would favor the opening of a new economic phase for the entire Maghreb. The cost of non-Maghreb remains considerable: several points of growth each year in the countries concerned. Intra-Maghreb trade represents less than 5 % of foreign trade of the countries of the region, which deprives them of a regional market of more than 100 million inhabitants.

Morocco today has some of the most efficient logistics and port infrastructures on the continent. Tanger Med has become one of the main maritime hubs of the Mediterranean and Africa, while the Nador West Med project should strengthen the coverage of the Mediterranean coast and the role of Morocco as a logistics platform between Europe, Africa and the Atlantic area.

For its part, Algeria has resources énergétiques, considerable mining and territorial development, coupled with a strong domestic market. Combined, these mutual capabilities could give birth to a Maghreb geo-economic continuum and reposition the Maghreb as a strategic crossroads on the new trade routes of the 21st century.^e siècle.

The reopening of land borders would also constitute a lever economical major. It would make it possible to revitalize border regions, reduce logistics costs, encourage human and commercial exchanges and limit the expansion of informal economies.

Normalization necessarily gradual

Of course, a political shift towards lasting normalization cannot be immediate. This normalization would pass par a gradual and pragmatic approach: media de-escalation, sectoral cooperation, energy coordination, facilitation of human exchanges or even joint logistics projects, on the Maghreb and Sahelo-Atlantic scale.

The reactivation of security dialogue mechanisms, technical cooperation in the fight against cross-border trafficking, the facilitation of trade academics and economic would also be important steps, and Tunisia, which constitutes an area of ​​convergence and regional mediation, would also have its role to play.

Ultimately, the real question is perhaps no longer whether Morocco and Algeria can achieve to a complete reconciliation, but how much longer can the Maghreb afford the strategic cost of their rivalry. A historic choice falls to them: remain prisoner of the inertia of the past or transform geographic, cultural and strategic synergies into a lever of projection régionale.

Cherkaoui Roudani

Moroccan academic and former parliamentarian