North Africa's stumbling bloc

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TUNIS, Tunisia -- Efforts to form a cohesive bloc among five North African coastal nations have stumbled into obstacles that no one seems capable of removing.

They include the intractable quarrel between Algeria and Morocco over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, Algeria's Islamic insurgency and Morocco's chasm between rich and poor, exploited by the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

Western analysts see Libya's return to the international community and Tunisia's continuing political stability as the only encouraging signs in the vast area stretching from the Libyan desert to Morocco's Atlantic coast and known as the Maghreb -- the land where the sun sets.

What has become known as the Union of Greater Maghreb comprises, from east to west, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.

Last December, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali invited his Maghreb colleagues and five heads of European states facing North Africa to a conference. The idea was to build political and economic bridges across the western Mediterranean, a center of the civilized world in antiquity.

The summit, known since as "the five plus five," ended in mutual congratulations, North African hopes for easier access to European markets, and European reluctance to make commitments that would bypass the European Union on the eve of expansion.

Nonetheless, to Western diplomats, the Tunisian idea represented a step forward, even though, three months later, there is little to show besides several communiques and plans for more meetings.

While the European partners of "five plus five" -- Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Malta -- await the EU's May 1 expansion from 15 to 25 members, the Maghreb has become resigned to individual quests for a better future.

Tunisian experts are generally pessimistic -- not about their own country, but about what they call "the rough neighborhood" around them.