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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/03
Europe and North Africa
January 2001
Abstract
In the European geopolitical perspective, North Africa does not make much sense. Rather, European relations focuses on the Maghreb, the Arab Occident, which traditionally includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Egypt, although part to North Africa, belongs geopolitically to another framework, i. e. the Mashreq, the Arab Orient. Libya, strongly attracted towards the Mashreq and the Arab-Israeli framework because of its Nasserite nationalism, as a matter of fact has failed to be co-opted in the group of the Arab front-line countries and, despite its endeavors, it has remained marginal to the Mashreq. In a sense, it is marginal to the Maghreb as well. Still, at the end of the 1980s, it integrated the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), thus accepting a less eastward orientation. Today, while Libya identity remains in-between the Mashreq and Maghreb, in European policies and perceptions it is definitely regarded as part of the Maghreb.
The AMU comprises Mauritania, too. Traditionally, Europe considers Mauritania as a sub-Saharan country. While the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue includes Mauritania, the current EU’s Mediterranean policy format - the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, EMP - does not comprise this country (which is member of the Lomé Convention, instead). Were tomorrow an EU Maghreb policy to emerge as distinct from present all-Mediterranean EMP, it is likely that the EU would consider Mauritania as part to the Maghreb and have no problem in including it in an EU-Maghreb group-to-group framework. Mauritania is not considered in the following.
Thus, this article concentrates on EU-Maghreb relations, considering a wider or narrower notion of Maghreb according to cases. With respect to this area, Europe faces a number of challenges and issues which affect its security in a narrower as well as broader sense. The challenges and issues this article considers are: Libya as a “rogue” state; Algeria and political Islam; migration; the Western Sahara and the American presence in the Maghreb. For sure, the US presence in the Maghreb does not affect European security. However, the mediation carried out by former Secretary of State, James Baker, between the parties to the Western Sahara crisis, the weight of the American policy in shaping out Western and European attitudes towards Algeria and its islamism and, more recently, the Eizenstat initiative of economic cooperation towards the Maghreb states, are as many signals of a significant American role in a region where Europe perceives itself, and is broadly perceived by others, as a primary actor. This trend, while not a security issue, is a political question mark on the European role towards the Maghreb and, more in general, its southern Mediterranean approaches. The final section sets out some conclusions and prospects in relations to this question mark.
