Introduction
The long-standing rivalry between Morocco and Algeria has recently seen both countries making strategic use of economic tools, especially in trade and the energy sector, to project power, forge new alliances, and engage in strong-arm tactics against European countries. Essentially, Algeria and Morocco are employing economic statecraft to carve out regional leadership roles for themselves in North and West Africa. The result is competing, yet at times also overlapping, spheres of influence.
This ongoing development risks fueling instability. Indeed, as the rivalry between Morocco and Algeria deepens and assumes new dimensions, two key consequences are likely to emerge. The first is increased tension with European partners, particularly between France and Algeria owing to France’s newfound support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a stance that not only deepens current frictions but also reactivates long-standing grievances rooted in the colonial past. The second is growing volatility in the Sahel, as Algeria and Morocco each attempt to shift the balance in their favor on the issue of the Western Sahara, over which they have long been at odds.
Building Political Leverage Through Energy and Trade
Both Algeria and Morocco have taken to using natural resources and commerce as a tool for furthering their strategic ambitions. Algeria is establishing itself as a key player in Europe’s long-term energy security by asserting its position in the energy market of the future, which includes both the production of green hydrogen and the supply of fossil fuels. To do this, it uses energy to forge closer political and economic ties with Italy and Germany—and gain leverage with them. Additionally, Algeria has turned its trade policy and its status as a major importer of food products, particularly cereals, into a form of economic pressure, sending a clear message that access to the Algerian market will increasingly be conditioned on geopolitical alignment.
Morocco’s energy strategy has two primary objectives: to guarantee long-term domestic energy security and to improve its international standing through clean energy exports. Over the past twenty years, Morocco has consistently invested in solar, wind, and hydropower, as well as, more recently, green hydrogen. The country now ranks among Africa’s top five producers of renewable energy. Although not a fossil fuel exporter, Morocco is using renewables to compete in the energy landscape and is capitalizing on its strategic geographic position and economic dynamism to attract investors.
The View from Algeria
The shock caused to the world’s energy markets by the war in Ukraine offered Algeria a golden opportunity to establish itself as one of Europe’s most prominent energy partners. Algiers filled the void left by the natural gas that EU countries had previously purchased from Russia and leveraged this economic boon into political influence. The redrawing of European gas supply lines has positioned Algeria as a strategic energy partner for Europe, allowing it to advance its interests at a critical moment.
The disruption of Russian gas supplies in the wake of the Ukraine war and the collapse of Libya’s energy output led Rome to shift its energy policy focus decisively toward Algiers. Under prime ministers Mario Draghi and Giorgia Meloni, Italy has become Algeria’s most important European partner. This strategic realignment resulted in a historic agreement between Algeria’s Sonatrach and Italy’s ENI. Signed in 2022, the agreement increased Algerian gas exports to Italy from 22 to 31 billion cubic meters annually and filled the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline, which passes through Tunisia. In just two years, 2022–2024, Algeria surpassed Russia as Italy’s top gas supplier.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani’s March 2023 visit to Algiers was a significant turning point that reaffirmed Algeria’s importance for Italy’s energy strategy. The announcement of the SoutH2Corridor, a $14.2-billion green hydrogen megaproject aimed at exporting four million tons of hydrogen per year to Europe by 2030, was the visit’s high point. The 3,300-kilometer corridor, which is to connect Algeria with Italy, Austria, and Germany via Tunisia, is essential to Algeria’s long-term energy aspirations as well as European decarbonization goals.
Another player in this alliance is neighboring Tunisia. The latter benefits economically and strategically from the fact that it serves as a transit country for the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline and as a potential hydrogen corridor. Trans-Mediterranean’s 2019 ten-year deal with ENI guaranteed stable gas supplies and favorable prices for Tunisia’s faltering economy, which had suffered from political instability since the 2011 ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Today, however, as Tunisia’s economic situation deteriorates under President Kais Saied, whose July 2021 power grab plunged the nation into severe economic and financial distress amid international isolation, the country has grown increasingly reliant on Algeria and Italy for political and financial support.
The result is a tenuous but largely effective three-way axis born of Tunis’ need for economic lifelines, Algiers’ regional leadership aspirations, and Rome’s concerns about migration and energy. Keen to enlist Tunisian cooperation in curbing irregular migration across the Central Mediterranean, Italy has turned a blind eye to Tunisia’s authoritarian drift. For its part, Algeria sees Tunisia as a vital sphere of influence, a place where it can outmaneuver Morocco and strengthen its position in the region. Energy flows, migration politics, and strategic opportunism hold together the new populist triangle of Italy, Tunisia, and Algeria, with this last increasingly acting as the anchor state.
Algeria’s economic statecraft incorporates coercive elements in addition to cooperation. Algiers’ willingness to weaponize its energy exports was made clear by the deterioration of its relations with Rabat in 2021 over the Western Sahara dispute. The Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline, which had previously shipped Algerian gas to Spain via Morocco, was closed by Algiers that year. The action was both punitive and strategic, depriving Rabat of a portion of its energy supply and substantial transit fees during a period of economic strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide inflation. Algeria signaled its determination to use infrastructure control as a geopolitical tool, thereby compelling Morocco to find alternative energy sources.
Algiers has adopted a similar approach when it comes to the food trade, especially the import of wheat. For example, in 2019, up to 5 million tons of soft wheat, amounting to $1 billion in trade, were imported by Algeria from France, making it one of the latter’s most successful years for wheat export. However, due to France’s growing and open support for Morocco’s plans for the Western Sahara (limited autonomy instead of a referendum on independence), Algeria began reorienting its procurement strategy toward Russian and Eastern European suppliers. Indeed, following Paris’ July 2024 decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, Algeria’s purchase of French soft wheat fell, totaling 1.5 million tons for that year. In 2025, Algiers boycotted French wheat altogether. Redirecting excess supply and preventing market disruption became immediate challenges for French producers.
Ultimately, Algeria’s economic statecraft has grown in sophistication and scale. Algiers has reshaped its position in regional and international geopolitics by aligning its food imports and energy exports with its strategic interests. Specifically, it has cultivated special ties with Italy, counterbalanced Morocco, punished France (and Spain) for foreign policy choices that conflict with Algerian interests, and cemented its relations with Russia despite the two being competitors in the global energy market. In doing all this, Algeria has turned its endowment of natural resources into a toolkit for regional influence.
The View from Morocco
Although not historically a major player in the energy market, Morocco has recognized that the evolving geopolitics of energy presents it with new opportunities to assert its influence in North Africa. Seizing what it sees as a “green window of opportunity,” the kingdom has accelerated investments in renewable energy not only to secure its own energy future, but also to position itself as a green energy hub. At the same time, Morocco has sought to leverage its geographic advantage by championing a transcontinental gas pipeline connecting Nigeria to Europe via Moroccan territory, an initiative that has intensified competition with Algeria.
Morocco’s geographic location and electricity grid connections with Spain and Portugal make it an ideal partner for the European Union and facilitate its quest to become a renewable energy hub in the EU’s southern energy neighborhood. An excellent illustration of this effort is Rabat’s green hydrogen roadmap, which was unveiled in 2021. The goal of the plan is to make the country a major supplier of hydrogen to domestic industries, such as fertilizer producers, as well as international markets. Energy Minister Leila Benali has framed the initiative in terms of sustainability and called it a “historic opportunity” for Morocco to further integrate itself into Europe’s energy architecture.
However, achieving this goal remains a challenge. Morocco still makes massive use of coal for most of its electricity. In order to transition entirely to renewable alternatives, the country will need to invest heavily in energy generation, storage, and infrastructure upgrades. The success or failure of the green hydrogen strategy will also depend on global demand, competitive pricing, and sustained political will in European capitals.
Morocco’s ambition to become an energy hub extends beyond renewables, pushing the kingdom to enter the geopolitics of gas pipelines—in North Africa, a domain historically dominated by Algeria and Libya. The changing European energy landscape has presented Morocco with an opportunity to position itself as a transit country in pipeline geopolitics, connecting West African gas to the European market. The most ambitious geopolitical component is the envisioned Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP).
Originally proposed in 2016, one year before Morocco rejoined the African Union following a thirty-three-year hiatus, the NMGP would carry natural gas from Nigeria along the West African coast, passing through thirteen countries before reaching Morocco. Should everything go as planned, the pipeline would supply up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year to over 400 million people along its 7,000-kilometer route. Significant international support for the NMGP has already materialized, as evidenced by the memorandum of understanding signed by Nigeria, the Economic Community of West African States, and Morocco in 2022, and the announcement by the United Arab Emirates in 2025 that it would fund the project.
Additionally, the NMGP serves as a strategic counterbalance to Algeria’s rival Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, an agreement for whose launch was signed in 2002 and which was intended to carry gas from Nigeria to Europe via Algeria and Niger. The Algerian project has stalled despite its earlier start because of the ongoing insecurity in Niger as well as Algeria’s deteriorating diplomatic ties with regional players. Morocco’s NMGP offers a more ambitious option, albeit one that is more expensive and politically complicated due to the large number of transit nations. It aims at providing a practical route for gas from Nigeria to enter European markets, thereby solidifying Morocco’s position as a vital energy and transit hub and anchoring its sovereignty over the Western Sahara.
Moroccan statecraft is not limited to energy. Clamping down on undocumented migrants making their way to Europe through Morocco and attracting major infrastructure investment have both become key negotiating tools, especially with Spain and France. After years of insisting that the future of the Western Sahara should be determined by a popular referendum in the territory itself, Madrid reversed course in 2022 and backed Morocco’s plan for granting the region limited autonomy. The reason for this about-face was Madrid’s desire to secure Rabat’s cooperation in curbing the flow of irregular migrants to the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, as well as the Canary Islands, in 2020 and 2021.
In 2024, a similar diplomatic breakthrough occurred with Paris. During President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Rabat in October of that year, Morocco and France signed investment agreements worth nearly $11.6 billion in transportation, renewable energy, and infrastructure. Although France’s foreign policy toward North African countries is not driven exclusively by economic considerations, these agreements marked a significant change in Franco-Moroccan relations and demonstrated Morocco’s ability to convert economic cooperation into diplomatic dividends. France’s waning influence in the Sahel, a failed rapprochement with Algeria despite Macron’s efforts to ease tensions, and the growing allure of the Moroccan market for French companies had convinced Paris that backing Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed Western Sahara would serve its interests.
Ultimately, Morocco has refined its strategic positioning by blending economic diplomacy, energy ambition, and migration control into a coherent foreign policy. Rabat has capitalized on Europe’s energy transition and shifting alliances to present itself as a stable partner, a renewable energy leader, and a potential transit hub for West African gas. It has harnessed migration cooperation with Spain, procurement diplomacy, and savvy strategic positioning vis-à-vis France, and competition with Algeria into a leadership role.
Escalating Rivalry in a Fragmented Region
The long-standing rivalry between Algeria and Morocco has entered a new and more antagonistic phase. For one thing, it has spread beyond North Africa and into the more unstable regions of the Sahel and West Africa. Both countries have taken steps to carve out spheres of influence through a combination of diplomacy, economic statecraft, and strategic alliances. And, for another, the rivalry has evolved into a zero-sum game, whereby one country’s gain is perceived as the other’s loss. The move by France and Spain toward endorsing Morocco’s position on the Western Sahara has accelerated this phenomenon by emboldening Rabat and angering Algiers.
The Western Sahara issue lies at the heart of the Algerian-Moroccan rivalry, shaping the strategic calculations and foreign policies of both states. For Morocco, securing international recognition of its sovereignty over the territory is a cornerstone of its national agenda and regional diplomacy. Algeria, in contrast, views support for the separatist Sahrawi cause as a matter of principle tied to anti-colonial solidarity and regional balance. This fundamental disagreement has fueled decades of mistrust and competition, transforming the Western Sahara into both a symbolic and a strategic battleground. As international positions shift and the UN-led peace process remains stalled, the issue continues to feed escalating tensions between the two neighbors.
Additionally, a new competitive frontier has emerged in the Sahel as a result of Moroccan-Algerian differences. Morocco and Algeria are both attempting to take advantage of each other’s failures. As Algiers’ power declines, Rabat is gaining ground. However, this is not the end of the game and the future remains very uncertain. Particularly in areas such as the Sahel, where institutions are weak, borders are porous, and alliances are brittle, Morocco and Algeria’s overlapping spheres of influence raise the possibility of conflict.
Algeria is actively attempting to reshape regional alliances in North Africa by advocating for a new Maghreb bloc that does not include Morocco. To that end, Algiers has sought closer coordination with Tunisia and Libya, a pursuit that culminated in a high-level tripartite meeting in Tunis in April 2024. Framed as a response to regional instability, the summit stressed the importance of establishing a regional framework for cooperation on migration and security. However, beyond these stated objectives, the initiative reflected Algeria’s broader ambition to assert its leadership in the Maghreb and sideline Morocco politically.
For its part, Morocco has attempted to increase its influence in West Africa and the Sahel by employing an approach predicated on long-term investment in several countries of the region, economic diplomacy, and tactful pragmatism. King Mohammed VI’s 2023 announcement of Rabat’s Atlantic Initiative serves as an example of this strategy. The project seeks to provide the landlocked Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger—all of which welcomed the announcement—with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean for worldwide maritime trade. These countries’ foreign ministers met with the Moroccan king in Rabat in April 2025 and reiterated their support for the initiative.
Morocco’s approach is not risk-free, despite its momentum. Overcoming significant logistical, financial, and security obstacles is essential to the Atlantic Initiative’s success. The Sahel is plagued by political instability and jihadist violence, and its infrastructure is still lacking. Furthermore, shorter and more well-established alternatives are provided by rival trade routes that pass through ports in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, and Togo. Morocco needs to show that its plan is not only economically feasible, but also has significant long-term political value, as opposed to being driven by its rivalry with Algeria. A failure to deliver would undermine Morocco’s credibility as a reliable long-term partner. It would also reinforce the perception that the Western Sahara has become the dominant lens through which Rabat conducts its foreign policy, often at the expense of accommodating the interests and needs of its partners.
Conclusion
The rivalry between Morocco and Algeria is expanding in scope, with both countries doubling down on competing visions for regional leadership. Morocco has harnessed its growing stature as a trade and energy hub to great effect, shifting international dynamics in its favor. The mounting endorsements of its autonomy plan for Western Sahara by major Western powers, including the United Kingdom, United States, France, and Spain, are not merely diplomatic victories; they mark a strategic realignment of European interests with Rabat’s stances. This shift has eroded Europe’s historical neutrality and redefined the parameters of international engagement with the Western Sahara conflict.
Algeria, by contrast, is grappling with a receding diplomatic horizon. The country’s regional reorientation, most notably its attempt to forge a new Maghreb framework with Libya and Tunisia, marks a pivot toward self-exclusion from, rather than integration into, existing politico-economic structures. Yet these efforts have delivered mixed results. In the Sahel, where Algeria once exercised considerable influence, its position has weakened. Tensions with Mali and Niger have deepened, and the withdrawal of France, previously a counterweight to Morocco, has further unsettled Algeria’s strategic environment. Looking ahead, the prospects for de-escalation remain dim.
The Western Sahara dispute continues to serve as the primary fault line between Morocco and Algeria, with little space for compromise and growing international momentum behind Rabat’s proposal of limited autonomy for the territory. At the same time, competing ambitions in the Sahel, and its member states’ diverging alliances with external powers, are more likely to fuel confrontation than foster cooperation. For international partners, any move in the future that favors one side in the Morocco-Algeria dispute risks disrupting the fragile balance of power between the two, with potentially destabilizing consequences for the region. Navigating this volatile geopolitical landscape will require strategic caution and nuanced diplomacy.
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