An Old World Solution

panish attempts to halt this illegal traffic have worked only after a fashion. Across these particular wat­ers the intercepts are now fewer, but the body-runners have also adapted, and the preferred new route involves speeding from Western Sahara to the Canary Islands, 100 kilometres off the African coast and through more treacherous ocean waters. Swamped by il­legal immigration, island authorities at these autonomous Spanish islands are demanding the same technological barriers as those now in place on Spain’s southern coast. Impressed with the good results there, they want this system put into operation along Morocco’s entire Atlantic coast.

Halfway along the Mediterranean, Libya served for years as the staging ground for a similar traffic in human cargo into Italy. Italians finally demanded that the government of Silvio Berlusconi staunch the flood, but such an action required delicate statecraft as the newly reformed Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi has had his own cards to play. Over the past few years Libya has welcomed a cluster of competing international oil companies to explore and exploit its enormous oil and gas reserves. Already a sizable producer—pumping out over 1.5 million barrels of oil a day—Libya has eclipsed Indonesia’s output and its mar­ket share competes favourably with Kuwait. Combined with Algeria, the region now produces more oil than Vene­zuela, and an energy-starved Europe has clearly taken notice.

Qaddafi opened the door to foreign direct investment and encouraged tourism from Italy and the rest of Europe. As part of a friendship deal, Libya also set up detention camps to stop the flow of immigrants into Italy. “You detain black immigration and we’ll boost your oil output,” Berlusconi was essentially saying, and the message was received. In 2004, Italy promoted lifting the EU arms embargo on Libya and, paralleling Spain’s surveillance umbrella operative around the Strait of Gibraltar, that allowed Libya to acquire patrol boats, heli­copters, and night-vision equipment to halt illegal immigration into Sicily.

It’s hard to imagine two more unlikely bedfellows than Qaddafi and Berlusconi, but in this region of the world old enemies are quickly becoming new friends. Following the lifting of the arms embargo, French President Jacques Chirac was quick to pay a visit to Tripoli to bolster relations with Qaddafi. While until recently Spanish investment across the Strait largely involved the relocation of labour-intensive plant operations to the cheap-labour conditions of Morocco, there is now a very different investment climate attracting Spanish money to the entire Maghrib region.

But events have caught up with these budding relationships. After the London bombings and the riots outside of Paris last fall and with disquiet about African and Muslim immigration across member states, in December the EU agreed to establish a Community Border Fund by the end of this year. While the title sounds benign, the goal is to halt illegal immigration and help legitimate newcomers establish themselves. A centrepiece of the fund, initially pro­posed by Spain’s Zapatero, is the extension of his country’s electronic sur­-veillance system to cover the entire Mediterranean coast of Europe. The move has given Zapatero some political mileage within the EU and is intended, partly, to satisfy French demands for program money to assist with assimilation, but the anxiety remains about “barbarians at the gate” or already resident. In Britain, a recent Home Office report estimates that close to 570,000 “illegals” are living there. Like Canada and the United States, Britain is considering biometric identity cards.

At the same time, opponents of “Fortress Europe” insist that the EU has good reason to embrace the entire Mediterranean basin, and the facts on the ground are compelling. Libya’s booming energy sector is impressive, but Algeria may be the sleeping giant. Its proven oil reserves top twelve billion barrels, and forecasts are bullish. And at 160 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves but with estimates ranging upward to 282 trillion, its natural-gas potential is more impressive still. Total investment in Algeria’s oil and gas sector is expected to run between $50 billion and $70 billion (US) over the next ten years. Moreover, business opportunities cover the entire gamut from exploration to refinery development, processing, pipeline construction, and other infrastructure projects. It is the stuff upon which a robust economy can be built, and almost all of the financing is being driven by Europe’s need for a secure energy future.

or decades, lpg carriers took liquefied petroleum gas from Algeria to both Spain and France, but the growing demand for the Maghrib’s natural gas has led to two major pipeline projects. One pipeline already runs from Algeria through Morocco and under the sea at the Strait of Gibraltar. Under a contract with Al­geria’s state-owned company Sonatrach, the Spanish group Gas Natural transports nine billion cubic metres of natural gas a year through this pipeline and ships another five billion cubic metres in liquid form. This company recently joined Repsol ypf—a major energy corporation with extensive interests in Latin America, Iran, and Nigeria—in a substantial exploration deal in western Algeria. Beating out leading European competitors like British Petroleum, Eni, total, and Royal Dutch Shell, the Repsol ypf/Gas Natural team has won a concession from Sonatrach to explore, produce, and market natural gas at Gassi Touil.

Spanish companies are also making a strong bid in Libya. Repsol ypf—currently developing an integrated project with Irving Oil in eastern Canada—is already active in Libya, producing some 200,000 barrels a day from the huge El Sharara field. And, through a consortium with French-owned total, Austria’s omv, and Norway’s Saga Petroleum, Repsol ypf is now opening up other fields. The Barcelona-based savings bank La Caixa is reportedly looking to partici­pate in pipeline construction.

The next stage of the rapidly evolving Algerian-Spanish energy relationship is a vast pipeline project launched by Medgaz, a Spanish-French partner­ship corporation (with ties to Sonatrach and other energy giants) created specifically for this project. The pipeline will bypass Morocco and pipe gas dir­ectly from Algeria’s coastal city of Beni Saf to Perdigal Beach in Al­meria, on Spain’s southern coast. It is designed to move between eight and sixteen billion cubic metres of gas a year. Technical studies are now complete, and with an offshore length of 200 kilometres this pipeline will lie on the sea floor more than 2,000 metres down at its lowest depth. Apart from securing supply, the advantage of the Medgaz project is that customers will not have to bear the added costs of piping gas through Morocco. In view of its heavy dependence on Algeria’s gas reserves, Spain is trying to keep all options open, and the Medgaz pipeline is now being given high priority by the Spanish government.

While Morocco has clearly articulated its position on sovereignty over Western Sahara, it needs Madrid’s support to improve its trade potential and current agreements with the EU. For any quid pro quo exchange, however, Spain undoubtedly would like to see an end to illegal immigration out of Western Sahara, as well as access to the rich fishing grounds off its shore. Happily for Morocco, Spanish oil and gas interests have obtained exploration rights off its coast, and electrical power potential is also attracting investment. Endesa, a Madrid-based power company, was involved in construction of a major new thermal power plant near Tangiers. With an installed capacity of 380 megawatts, this plant will eventually provide 20 percent of Morocco’s power needs.