The Maghreb countries – or as more widely known the North African Arab countries of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – have since the early 1990s experienced extremely interesting and important phases of development and transformation. These five countries have strong commonalities and similarities in relation to culture, language, tradition and legal systems which many would argue have been facilitated by their geographic location. Others attribute these commonalities to their link to France and the existence of a French rule in most of them in the early parts of the twentieth century. These commonalities have, among other things, facilitated cooperation between these countries, though they have also been the cause of some frictions and deep disagreements. An important achievement of the Maghreb countries in forging closer economic, social and political ties among themselves has been the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) which was established in 1989.

The roots of the AMU, however, extend to a fruitless attempt in 1964 by Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia to coordinate and harmonise their development plans, inter-regional trade and relations with the EC. That attempt took the form of a conference attended by the Economic Ministers of the four countries and the creation of the Permanent Consultation Council of the Maghreb Countries, Conseil Permanent Cunsultatif du Maghreb (CPCM) at that conference. The AMU has very ambitious goals and objectives including establishing closer ties and solidarity, common defence and free movement of goods and services. To date, however, these objectives have not all been achieved.