L’Union du Maghreb Arabe, ovvero l’utopia di una organizzazione regionale africana

On february 1989 the five Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) signed a pan-arab trade agreement aiming to form an economic and political regional union: it was the Uniond du Maghreb Arabe (Ittihad al-Maghrib al-Araby). Envisioned initially as an Arab superstate, the organization was expected to work as a huge North African common market able to cope with the European Community and the post-cold war geopolitics and economy. Unfortunately the Maghreb states were not able to cast away their traditional rivalries and suspiciousness, notably Algeria and Morocco with the unsolved question of the Western Sahara sovereignity, and let the organization slowly paralyze and die.