Arab Maghreb Union (AMU): (In or Mostly) Out of Africa and Tumultuous Inertia

Abstract

Were it better organized, active and less contentious, the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) might argue that it is both a Regional Economic Community (most scholarship describes it as a ‘trade agreement’) or part of the African Union's ‘pillars’ (AMU members are geographically in Africa, almost, with a political, religious and ideological foot in Western Asia).Perhaps the critique is too harsh, but AMU is both ideologically and geographically on the periphery of AU and other regional RECs, although a number of its members are also in the expansive CEN-SAD. The Arab Maghreb Union's goals are a laundry list of REC goals; its Constitutive Treaty includes improvement of relations between the members, free movement of persons, goods, services and capital and adoption of common policies. Its proposed stages reflect those of other RECs: establishment of a free trade area, customs union and common market. Notwithstanding and as shown in the chapter, AMU also aims at religious, cultural and political integration, a path that suggests possible ‘no-fit’ with other RECs, despite the dual and triple memberships in other RECs. Yet the AMU members, despite being the fewest (AMU is the smallest REC), have had dual and three-way conflicts: Morocco vs. Mauritania vs. Algeria (including Sands War), in part driven by an irredentist and expansionist Morocco, which also stayed out of the OAU until 2017, over the issue of Western Sahara / Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Data on REC memberships and duration do not show any significant difference between the pre-REC years and the in-REC years in terms of economic development, good governance or conflict reduction. AMU has generally been regarded as dormant from 2008 through 2022 and possibly beyond.