Algiers , February 20, 2017 (SPS) - Experts and specialists in international relations affirmed that Morocco needed the African Union (AU) for its weight and its influence on the international scene just as it is confined to international isolation because of its obstinacy that it showed throughout the process of political settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara.
The African Union was founded on intrinsic principles that are the identity of the African people and the history of their fight, said the experts.
In this regard, the professor at the National Higher School of Political Sciences Mohamed Said Mekki said that Morocco has done everything to reintegrate the AU because of its position increasingly vulnerable at the international level particularly concerning the conflict in Western Sahara. “This accession is absolutely normal for geographic considerations,” he said.
“The Western Sahara issue raises growing international interest,” said the expert, underlining that “all the regional and international organizations all over the world became aware of the correctness of the Sahrawi fight. Thus, Morocco finds itself isolated and forced to resort to the African Union, whose influence on the international scene is increasingly strengthened.”
Morocco needs the AU, not the opposite
“Morocco has now become aware that its withdrawal from the Organization of African Unity (OAU), 32 years ago was a mistake that had to be corrected,” said the professor of political sciences at the University of Mostaganem and specialist in African and Strategic studies Absir Ahmed Taleb, adding that “Morocco understood that it can no longer act independently of this continental institution, now more influential at the international level.”
“It is Morocco that needs the AU, not the opposite,” he added.
At the very beginning, Morocco tried to set out conditions as a prelude to its accession to the African Union, to which it finally renounced to sign the constitutive act without reservations “which indicates Morocco’s concern to adhere, at all costs, to this continental body,” he added.
Adoption of AU texts, recognition of Sahrawi Republic
From a legal point f view, Lenouar Faycal, professor of International Law at the Algiers Law School stressed that the adoption of the Constitutive Act of the AU is a sort of recognition of the Sahrawi Republic, a founding member of the AU.
Furthermore, he noted the existence of a contradiction between the content of the AU statuses and the Moroccan Constitution, adding that this contradiction cannot impact the AU action because its actions are governed by the constitutive act and therefore, Morocco is forced to respect the provisions of this law, placed above its internal Constitution. SPS
125/090/700