User:Ziad a.samad

When Will Arab Regional Cooperation Become a Strategic Choice?

The Program "Civil Society ENPI South " organized the fourth of a series of workshops in its framework in Tunisia, under the title "Challenges of regional integration in South- South Mediterranean in the Context of transition, Europe Proposals and Role of Civil Society " The program aims to discuss European-Arab relations on all political, economic, and social levels.

At the end of last year (17/12/2012) the European Union issued a Joint Communication "support and empowering of the regional integration of Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia". The document was a continuation of European initiatives in parallel to the transformations in the region since the start of the Arab revolutions. It proposed the activation of the reform process towards more democracy and political participation through allowing more public and private freedoms, thereby enhancing the role of civil society and political parties. The EU joint communication elaborates on trade cooperation among Arab Maghreb countries, in its belief that trade would contribute to enhancing European investment opportunities. It should also be noted that the initiative seeks to create links with trade relations between the Maghreb and the rest of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan countries that have good business relations with the European Union. The document also mentions the need to build peace and security in the Maghreb as part of Africa, through proposing the activation of the "war on terrorism," in reference to the al-Qaeda in the Arab Maghreb.

The proposals in the communication do not add any new information-the European Common Market (European Economic Community) in 1992 issued a declaration on "Economic Cooperation among the Maghreb countries", which practically confirmed the importance of regional cooperation. However, the proposal shows that the Europeans did not learn from the former experiences in the relationship with the countries of the region. They don't believe that the Arab revolutions, which began in the Arab Maghreb are caused by deprivation, injustice, and lack of democracy. The revolutions erupted exactly in the country always considered by the Europeans to be the model partner. If this says something, it is that European standards to measure progress in the region may not accurately reflect the reality of the level of development in general.

Political and cultural links between the Arab Maghreb and the Arab Levant are probably as important as those with Sub-Saharan Africa, if not more important. Therefore, escaping the difficulties of cooperation between the Arab Levant in the direction of bolstering relations with Sub-Saharan Africa is not possible despite their importance for the Arab Maghreb due to geographic factors only (since the Maghreb lies in Northern Africa). Orientation towards Africa, for example, will not protect the Maghreb from the dangers of the failure to reach a just and comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian cause. Additionally, the war on terror demanded from the Arab Maghreb, in the EU document, must not ignore the various factors causing terrorism and should aim to deal with them in a comprehensive and calm approach. This should include the treatment of the reasons behind the double standards in respecting international laws, in addition to political, economic, social, and cultural challenges.

In this context, we notice that inter-Maghreb trade relations make up no more than 3% of total trade in the region. Some experts estimate that it could be raised to 10% (Azzam Mahjoub) without big effort, if there is political will. The political and economic price of not promoting cooperation within the Maghreb is estimated at 30% of the GNP, especially in relation to the conflict between Morocco and Algeria and the amounts spent on defense. This is in addition to a large number of trade and economic obstacles, where intra-Maghreb protectionist measures are high despite what has been attained in terms of trade liberalization. This is especially true for costly "non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs)in terms of administration, procedures, corruption, and manipulation. Other obstacles include the absence of unified "rules of origin," the lack of harmony between procedures and legislation, and institutional weakness, where the executive branch's role and interference are deep, while the legislature's role is almost nonexistent and the judiciary is completely absent.

As for the countries of the East, the picture looks murkier still. The Arab-Israeli conflict has a direct impact on cooperation and coordination efforts. However, cooperation among those countries was never on the same level as that among countries of the Maghreb (the Maghreb Union being one of them). The project for Arab unity promoted by Jamal Abdel Nasser at the beginning of his revolution suffered a heavy defeat following the setback of 1967 and the resulting signature of the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel ten years later. The war on Iraq in 1992 and 2003 added to complications in regional relations. The Arab East saw several attempts to invigorate regional cooperation through several initiatives. They failed because they were top-down and improvised, in addition to many other political and economic factors, such as the union between Egypt and Syria or attempts at unity between Syria and Iraq.

Regional cooperation cannot occur without serious and steadfast efforts for conflict resolution in the region, primarily the Arab Israeli conflict resulting from occupation and Israeli colonial expansionism. This is in addition to the conflict between Algeria and Morocco over the Western Sahara. Regional cooperation also requires the establishment of strong States, with separate authorities, which promotes citizenship and is based on a new social contract. Integration and cooperation should result from clear and precise national options, strategies and priorities based on a national dialogue where all sides are involved, including the private sector and civil society.

The absence of such trends and orientations will weaken the trend towards enhancing regional cooperation in light of multiple processes of negotiations, such as those related to joining the WTO, those concerning the Euro Med Partnership Treaty, Arab Facilitation Treaties, and bilateral Free Trade Agreements with the EU, the US, Turkey, and other countries. Determining the negotiations tracks based on priorities should happen after the setting of national goals. This is followed by cooperation to find technical solutions for mutual trade facilitation.

Going back to the European communication on the regional integration within the Maghreb, invigorating Arab European relations will happen through the activation of political dialogue between multiple sides on challenges faced by the region and the nature of relations between the two sides. Therefore, relations cannot be improved by merely enhancing trade. In fact, bilateral negotiations with some Maghreb countries launched by the EU are an impediment to regional cooperation and contribute to the dissipation efforts and the fragmentation of the region. Other obstacles remain in the relationship between the EU and the Maghreb and they should be well addressed, such as the questions of due debt. But the most prominent obstacle could be European policy towards Israel, which aims to sustain Israeli strategic and military dominance on a racist basis, with its daily violations of human rights, which goes completely against the principles of the European Union. This is in addition to the lack of coherence in EU policies; in fact many European policies are not in harmony with European principles, aims, and promises, as in European agricultural policies.

The Arabs, on the other hand, have to decide on regional cooperation. The basis of such an endeavor exists in regional organizations in the framework of the League of Arab States. The international trend is currently pointing towards regionalization (regional cooperation) to face the challenges of the integration in the Global economic and trading systems and to confront globalization. There is no reason that this trend should not be an Arab choice as well.