The holding of the Algeria-Libya-Tunisia trilateral summit on April 22 at the initiative of Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune marks his ambitions to unify the Maghreb. At the trilateral meeting in Tunisia, the Maghreb heads of state assessed the scale of the problems they face and ways to address them. Overall, the discussions concluded that Algeria, Tunisia and Libya have “enormous political, economic and cultural advantages” to solve their problems.

According to the leaders of the three countries, the capacity of these countries “would increase tenfold if they acted together to solve the problems. In the case of Tunisia and Libya, which have serious economic and political problems, this means Algeria’s offer to help solve them in exchange for participation in its Maghreb integration union. President A. Tebboun has a different approach to each country. What is common is the traditional appeal to “Arab brotherhood” and “common  history”.

Algeria is even more attentive to Libyan affairs. Thus, in many respects, the establishment and existence of the government in Tripoli is to Algeria’s credit. Algeria supports the government of A.H. Dbeiba in contrast to the attempts of the commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Khalifa Haftar, who relies, among other things, on the help of Russia and the UAE, to unite Libya under his rule. In many respects, it was Algerian assistance that thwarted Haftar’s repeated attempts to seize Tripoli. This support ranged from political to financial and military-intelligence support.

It is important to note that by supporting the government in Tripoli, the leadership of the ANDR coordinates its actions with a number of Western countries, especially Italy. And Algerian leaders demonstrate their intention to continue building their influence in Libya in such a way that this country increasingly falls into the orbit of Algeria’s influence. At the same time, in recent years, the leadership of Algeria has sought to put this into practice with regard to the economy. In particular, Algeria has already invested considerable sums in the restoration of the Libyan oil and gas industry, demonstrating its desire to derive serious revenues from it in the future. In addition, representatives of the Algerian state energy company Sonatrach expressed their willingness to invest up to $2 billion in exploration, production and transportation of hydrocarbons from Libya.

Now, according to Algerian sources, the parties are creating a free trade zone between the two countries, which should bring the two states even closer to each other. And A. Tebboun expects to expand it to Tunisia as well.

As for the economy, Algerian leaders express confidence that the Maghreb, which will become more secure with the strengthening of their country’s influence here, can count on huge investments primarily from Western countries. In particular, this concerns the realization of European countries’ plans to “liberate” themselves from energy dependence on Russia.

As for the ultimate vision of the Maghreb’s destiny, the IDA leadership expects to unite its countries in a pro-Algerian organization in the future and to represent the region on the world stage on its behalf.

In general, Algerian sources believe that Libya and Tunisia should eventually orient themselves towards Algeria.

According to A. Tebboune’s calculations, this will greatly increase not only Algeria’s regional but also its international influence. It is not by chance that Algerian sources, commenting on the results of the Maghreb summit, say that it “marks the beginning of a new era in the region”.

Previously, during his rule in Libya, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi repeatedly demonstrated his ambitions to “unite the Maghreb”, even demonstratively “erasing” the Libyan-Tunisian border with a bulldozer. However, the option of uniting the Maghreb under the aegis of Libya failed primarily because of external interference, including from Algeria, which had its own ambitions to lead the Arab world in general and the region in particular.

There are many opponents of the attempted “Algerianization” of the Maghreb. Among the most obvious are the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Not to be left out is Israel, for which the strengthening of a hostile country in the region, the People’s Democratic Republic of Iran, is absolutely unnecessary. In this regard, an important point of the meeting in Tunisia is the demand expressed by its participants to foreign powers outside the Maghreb to “stop any foreign interference”.

This is no coincidence, given Algeria’s active intervention in the civil war in Libya. A similar situation is increasingly visible in the Sahel. There, Algeria’s opponents are also increasingly trying to curb its regional ambitions. For example, in Mauritania, which Algeria also expects to be “attached” to the project of “its” Maghreb in the near future.

However, the responsibility for creating a “strong and robust Maghreb economic space” under the aegis of Algeria will require the use of enormous resources, including financial resources. After all, the attempt to assume responsibility for the security of Libya and Tunisia also entails serious costs. Moreover, Algeria, which claims to be the “main” player in the region, is expected to provide these countries with very serious assistance, if not a complete solution to their economic problems.

Thus, Tunisia alone will need billions of dollars to solve only urgent problems related to the presence of a serious budget deficit. And all this spending is likely to be in vain, given the opposition of Algeria’s powerful competitors, who have far greater resources and capacity to curb its ambitions, which are clearly not keeping pace with the country’s economic development.