تحولات السياسة الخارجية المغربية و الدور الجيوستراتيجي تجاه إفريقيا و الخليج العربي

Abstract EN

The paper aims to discuss the shifts in the Moroccan foreign policy on the African level, as well as the developments of the Moroccan orientation towards the Gulf Cooperation Council after the "Arab Spring".

Thus, it focuses on factors controlling the current and prospective future changes, in an attempt to identify the causes of these changes regarding regional and international factors and their overlappingthe national regional factors.

The researcher reviews the updates of Moroccan trends of foreign policy in terms of strategic objective of Morocco,and in terms of means and geographical affiliation.

Although Morocco had significant relationships with Africa and with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), it changes some of its traditional objectives and introduced others.

The Moroccan view towards its geo-strategic location also has significantly changed, as well as how to invest it in the international reality, as Morocco “wins” the bet of providing exit from the repercussions of the "Arab Spring" with political stability safeguarded by political reforms established in the Constitution of 2011.

This study deals with foreign policy shifts toward Southern Africa, and the Middle East, particularly, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),as a Moroccan shift toward building a new foreign policy, in light of rapid changes of the Arab and African systems.

That is why the foreign policy of Morocco consider Arab and African regional groupings in association andconnection to the integration theory adopted by Morocco in its official speeches and orientations.

In this context, the study attempts to investigate reasons for the Moroccan shift from partnership with France to attempting to build a Moroccan specific strategy and dynamics.

It also tries to examine the relationship between Morocco’s orientation towards Africa and its orientation towards the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The researcher believes that Morocco in recent years was able to develop its foreign policy, and invest the regional and international changes to boost its pivotal role in international relations.

And although it is not a memberin the Organization of African Unity, but it was able to maintain its pivotal role in the African Sahel and Saharan and West Africa.

Also, it entered into a new kind of partnership with the Gulf Cooperation Council, and turned to be a competitive state to France in its “reserved” space in Africa,which enhances the chances of the new strategy success; to become a regional pole with multiple companies, on the international, regional and continent level.