Algerian regime blocks Maghreb integration- former Tunisian President

The Algerian regime has blocked all attempts to bring closer the peoples of the Maghreb, former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki said.

Algeria has stood against all Maghreb integration initiatives, Marzouki, who led Tunisia from 2011 to 2014, said in a recent interview.

While in office, Marzouki has tried to bring the two Maghreban heavy weights, Morocco and Algeria, closer suggesting the five countries of the Maghreb start by offering their peoples the freedom of movement, labor, ownership, and participation in local election. His proposal fell on deaf ears in Algeria.

For the current Algerian leadership, maintaining close borders with Morocco was not enough. Algeria unilaterally cut ties with Morocco, banned all Moroccan airplanes from crossing its airspace, and imposed visas on Moroccan nationals.

Algeria’s model of the Maghreb union rests on vassalization of its neighbors as it did with Tunisia’s Kais Saied.

Marzouki decried Algeria’s attempts to stoke tension between Tunis and Rabat using oil and gas money.

He deplored that Tunisia violated its neutrality on the Sahara issue when Saied offered a state welcome to head of the Polisario separatist militias in 2022.

“Neither Habib Bourguiba nor Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ever dared to commit such an aberration,” said Marzouki, who regrets that Kais Saied has placed himself under the armpits of the Algerian generals by transforming Tunisia into an Algerian puppet state, due to “his incompetence and mismanagement.”