The Maghreb needs to focus on economic co-operation, not politics, said participants in the 7th Consultative Council meeting of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU).
Economic bloc-building, not political integration, should be the main concern of the nascent Arab Maghreb Union, said regional officials who met last week in Algiers for the AMU's 7th Consultative Council meeting.
To that end, the union may host its first leadership summit since 1994, AMU Secretary General Habib Ben Yahia told Magharebia.
"Contacts will be made with the leaders so that it can be held before the end of the year," Ben Yahia said at the two-day meeting, which ended on Thursday (June 10th).
"There is a big chance to have a summit at the leadership level, because there's an urgent desire at different levels of the council's body to meet all the conditions so it can happen," he added.
Ministers from AMU member nations Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia stressed the need to complete the union's institutions so that the Maghreb bloc can compete with other powers like the European Union in trade and other sectors.
They suggested that the AMU focus on streamlining joint economic goals among member nations instead of working towards political co-ordination.
Economic co-operation will allow the region to become "an integrated and efficient economic bloc and an influential regional power", said the council's secretary general, Said Mokadem.
"In order to strengthen our negotiating position with others, and have our choices, interests and transactions respected, we have to fortify the integration of our economies and promote intensive co-operation between us," said Mahmoud Khedri, Algeria's minister for parliamentary relations.
Khedri said that a strong union would result in "achieving progress and prosperity for its people".
Participants at the conference said that a unified Maghreb organisation would also improve essential development projects that would reinforce existing transport and energy networks.
Algerian Aissa Kheiri was elected president of the AMU Consultative Council, replacing Sohbi Karoui, a Tunisian, who had held the position since 2005.
Kheiri said Algeria was committed to the establishment of the Maghreb Union, and named global warming and the need to create an ecological plan as important common challenges faced by the region.
"As parliamentarians, we have to keep up with the events and changes our Arab societies experience, and to have courage and ability so we can be worthy of our peoples' trust", said Mauritanian Parliamentary Group President Baba Ould Ahmed Babou.
Moroccan delegation head Maati Benkaddour praised efforts to build up the foundations of the Maghreb Union, saying he is "looking forward to having the necessary boldness to overcome the obstacles that impede the rapid building of the Maghreb".
Abd Elkader Bensalah, the president of the Council of the Nation in Algeria, dismissed critics of the AMU.
"The Maghreb Union today is a reality, and it is functioning under normal conditions and making decisions," he said, pointing to the Maghreb Bank for Investment and Trade, which will hold its inaugural meeting in Tunisia this year.
Bensalah criticised what he called "the lack of coordination among Maghreb countries during negotiations with the European Union to establish a trade zone", adding that taking different stances in trade talks weakened the position of the region.
He called on parliamentarians to "work hard to support all the efforts that aim to strengthen the common Maghreb effort in advancing our countries and defending its ultimate interests".
By Walid Ramzi for Magharebia in Algiers
© Magharebia.com 2010
