AMU SLUGGISH, BUT STILL HAS A PULSE

C O N F I D E N T I A L RABAT 000256 SIPDIS DEPT FOR NEA/MAG, EEB/TPP/BTA - EGAN AND S/P - BEHRMAN TUNIS ALSO FOR USED AT THE AFDB E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/30/2019 TAGS: ECIN PREL ETRD EINV PTER XI MO SUBJECT: AMU SLUGGISH, BUT STILL HAS A PULSE REF: A. 08 RABAT 0532 ¶B. 08 RABAT 0156 ¶C. SECRETARY 0015 (NOTAL) ¶D. RABAT 0236 Classified By: CDA Robert P. Jackson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Secretary General of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) Habib Ben Yahia told the Charge and Department representatives on March 18 that the North African countries continue to make modest advances in functional economic integration, but prospects for political rapprochement remain remote. He observed that trade, while tiny, was growing, and the private sector leads integration efforts, including through finance. Work was continuing on critical regional infrastructure with the Trans-North African highway nearly complete but for the borders. Ben Yahia regretted the situation in Mauritania, but implied that the AMU had to accept the current political situation, while security in the border regions remained a priority. Resolving the core Algerian-Moroccan conflict may require generational change, he mused. The AMU, an organization consisting of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, is currently celebrating its twentieth anniversary but has little to show for the last decade. Both Moroccan officials and AMU staff from Ben Yahia down have welcomed past USG contacts with the AMU, and urge enhanced USG high level engagement to support regional integration. End summary. -------------- Economic Integration Work Continues -------------- ¶2. (SBU) During a discussion of the AMU's goals and projects with the Charge, A/DCM, EconCouns, and visiting EEB Officer Julie Egan and MEPI Officer Greg Howell, Secretary General Habib Ben Yahia reiterated his goal of using economic convergence in "sectors of common interest" to spur the long-moribund AMU toward greater regional integration (Ref A). Ben Yahia, a former Tunisian Foreign Minister and Defense Minister, noted consistent IMF and World Bank support. (Note: IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn had co-chaired, with Ben Yahia, the November AMU Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors meeting in Tripoli. End note.) ¶3. (SBU) Ben Yahia said that AMU financial integration working groups contribute to a growing network of banking relationships throughout the Maghreb. A further step will ;occur when the Maghreb Investment Bank in Tunis is up and running. This, he said, will enable financing of "horizontal" projects throughout the region. ¶4. (SBU) On trade, Ben Yahia highlighted an AMU study committee to examine how to harmonize policy and increase trade. Such intraregional trade flows remain tiny, he conceded, and are dominated by the relatively large Libyan-Tunisian trade (approximately USD 2.5 billion). Key to allowing intraregional trade to flourish will be the completion of the Trans-Maghreb Highway, currently under construction in each country on a national level. The AMU is working with technical experts to ensure that highway and rail connections across the Morocco-Algeria border will be possible when political conditions allow. AMU Director for Economic Affairs Saida Bendili told EconOff in a separate meeting that trade between AMU members accounts for only 2.6 percent of the total trade volume of the five countries, but there is a lack of detailed trade statistics. The AMU hopes to obtain funds from the African Development Bank for a detailed database of its own, instead of relying on numbers from the IMF. ¶5. (SBU) Ben Yahia highlighted the Maghreb Businessmen's Union, which unites each nation,s business associations, as a means to reinforce private sector links. The association is organizing a conference for later this spring. He also noted efforts to adopt a unified Maghreb Code of Investments, to ensure that investors have common privileges, and successful efforts to ensure that insurance is valid throughout the region. -------------- Food and Resources -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Ben Yahia identified food security as another preoccupation of his organization. Counter-intuitively, one of the best areas for cereal cultivation is a 140,000 hectare swathe of Mauritania that could be naturally irrigated by the Senegal River. Noting the accompanying challenge of desertification, he said that the AMU promotes anti-desertification and water use policy coordination among member countries. The AMU has worked, in cooperation with UNESCO, to establish a regional framework to govern pumping in the "deep aquifers" in the southern parts of region, to combat overuse and competition over this resource. The AMU, he said, is also reaching out across the Sahel to ECOWAS and other West African institutions to work bilaterally with them to address desertification. West Africa, he noted, is even more afflicted by desertification than is the AMU, leading to migration and other issues that pose serious challenges for North Africa. ¶7. (SBU) Energy is one area in which the private sector has successfully pushed integration without awaiting political leadership, according to Mendili. A Maghreb Electricity Committee (COMELEC),regrouping the electric utilities of the five countries, coordinates interconnections between neighboring countries, including a November 2008 upgrade of the Morocco-Algeria interconnections and agreements for Morocco to transport Algerian power for export to Spain. The Maghreb countries also boast complementary energy resources, including oil and gas in Algeria and Libya, and wind and solar potential in Algeria, Mauritania, and Morocco. Ben Yahia stated that work groups are developing a strategy for solar power, part of an effort to develop a renewable energy charter for AMU members. The key challenge in solar power development is the enormous investments that are required. Ben Yahia expressed hope that future cheaper solar panels would make the option more realistic. -------------- Collaboration Helps, But It's Not Enough -------------- ¶8. (C) Ben Yahia said his goal is to use these "federative" sectors to achieve practical links that will lay the groundwork for deeper integration when political conditions allow it. Mendili told EconOff that AMU working groups leave the Morocco-Algeria dispute over Western Sahara "at the UN level," and goodwill exists among all working level participants to promote regional integration. All of the working sessions include representatives from all five member countries, she emphasized, and integration is a shared vision. Asked how the U.S. could improve regional integration, Ben Yahia told the Charge that the "more you (the USG) voice your opinion on the necessity of accelerating integration," the more priority it will receive from countries in the region. He argued that it is important for the U.S. to take a role, and to help the region make up the gap between current efforts and the momentum needed to achieve meaningful integration. Economic cooperation, along with the similar ethnic makeup of countries in the region, is a "necessary but not sufficient condition to push integration," he said. "We need a push from the big powers, you and especially the European Union, given its role in the region." -------------- -------------- Radicalization, Economic Opportunity and Mauritania -------------- -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Ben Yahia pivoted from economic integration to the link between economic opportunity and de-radicalization. He noted that security is a multi-faceted issue, implicating security policies, education, training and leisure. The key for countries of the AMU, he argued, is to increase job opportunities, and thereby minimize the impact of radical philosophies. The EU is assisting in defining areas of concentration for an AMU strategy to address this radicalization, he said, a process that began in Rabat last year. Ben Yahia appreciated the dialogue on radicalization with the USG that began in September 2007, including discussions with S/CT General Dailey and the April 2008 meeting of AMU experts in Washington. ¶10. (C) On Mauritania, which he characterized as the "soft underbelly" of the Maghreb, Ben Yahia expressed concern about the "explosive" situation on the Mali-Mauritania border, and suggested that the problem in the uncontrolled desert spaces outweighed the political considerations. He spoke uneasily about the political situation in Nouakchott but observed he was "certain" that the Mauritanian junta's proposed June 6 elections will proceed. He told us that Mauritania had submitted a request to the AMU for election observers. Noting the coming elections in Algeria, Ben Yahia regretted that resolving the core Morocco-Algeria disputes may well require generational change in political leadership. -------------- Political Obstacles Remain -------------- ¶11. (C) Comment: Ben Yahia, a former Ambassador in Washington, does not appear to have much authority over member states, but he can be a facilitator of efforts by the USG and others to promote rapprochement and integration in North Africa. While AMU officials and supporters hope that private enterprise on both sides of the Morocco-Algeria border will overcome the political estrangement to promote real integration, without political pressure to open borders, integration efforts and economic growth will continue to fall short of their potential. Continued USG engagement with the AMU as a group (excluding Mauritania),along the lines of the past successful Foreign Ministers dialogues with the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, and joint Foreign Minister meetings with the Secretary, are essential to maintaining the momentum of regional integration and keeping political leadership focused. End comment. ***************************************** Visit Embassy Rabat's Classified Website; http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Moro cco ***************************************** Jackson