A League of Nations in Transition – Regional Integration for the Arab Spring Nations

The Arab Spring of 2011 started with the self-immolation of an economically oppressed street vendor and led to the toppling of four dictators. However, what started with high hopes for the region, as an event that could usher into a new era of economic and political development, is now considered very much a failure. In this paper, we briefly outline the pre-existing economic condition of the region, and the known benefits of regional economic integration. Although there is plenty of literature supporting regional trade through gravity model analysis, this paper will focus on the current affiliation agreements with the EU by some of the countries impacted by the Arab Spring. In particular, this paper outlines the many efforts for integration of North African countries into the EU market, through cooperation agreements and association agreements. Next, this paper will explore the role of international institutions and regional integration in North Africa, focusing primarily on the Agadir Agreement. This paper identifies the key areas where regulatory reform in a number of Arab Spring countries, in order to gain access to EU markets, has created a type of ‘back-door harmonization’ which could make regional integration that much easier to implement and beneficial for these nations. A ‘League of Nations in Transition’should be the aspirational goal that the Arab Spring countries so desperately need. Although the reality of EU-North Africa trade relations within the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) framework has been negative for the members of the Agadir Agreement, this paper argues that the Agadir Agreement could be beneficial for the country members if they negotiate with the EU as a group and not individually.