Egypt is courting Algeria, but will it impact ties with Morocco?

Egypt and Algeria appear to be spotting a potential for reenergising their cooperation, but this is raising speculation about whether it will affect Cairo's relations with Rabat, another North African capital locked in a bitter stand-off with Algiers.

Algerian Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb arrived in the Egyptian capital late November, accompanied by a high-level official and a business delegation from his country. The Algerian premier had a full agenda focused on business.

The Egypt-Algeria Joint High Committee convened during the visit and witnessed the signing of a series of agreements and memoranda of understanding, underscoring the two countries' desire to expand their cooperation via economic sectors in the coming period.

This comes as analysts in Cairo and Algiers hope the two countries can form a new economic bloc in the North African region that draws in other countries, helping hammer out stronger regional unity at a critical time for the Middle East, in general, and North Africa, in particular.

"The expansion of Cooperation between Algeria and Egypt has an important strategic dimension to it, one that will open the door for bolstering the two countries' economic and technological capabilities and widening the scope of their diplomatic influence," Bouhidel Redouane, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Algiers, said.

Speaking to The New Arab, he expressed hopes that the two countries would broaden their cooperation beyond the economic field and move to coordinate positions on regional and international political and security issues.

Nevertheless, there are fears that the potential Egypt-Algeria axis would stoke anger in Morocco, another key regional state.

Navigating neutrality

The Algerian prime minister's visit to Cairo immediately raised speculation about whether Rabat wants to send a message of anger over any potential further strengthening of relations between Cairo and Algiers.

A day after the visit, Moroccan authorities imposed 92.19% anti-dumping duties on Egyptian PVC imports, citing harms to local production.

This was not the first problem in trade between the two countries, but its timing sparked debate over whether the anti-dumping duties were imposed in retaliation for the possible strengthening of relations between Egypt and Algeria.

Two days later, Moroccan fans unleashed a barrage of hostility on an Egyptian football team playing a CAF Champions' League group-stage match against a Moroccan team, making it clear to some Egyptians that the anger was not aimed at the visiting team, but at Egypt itself.

Some analysts view these developments as signs of Moroccan fury at the evolving Egypt-Algeria cooperation.

"This anger is part of Rabat's calculations within the context of its imagined political struggle against Algeria," Redouane said. "Tensions between Rabat and Algiers prod the former to closely monitor the regional alliances the latter constructs."

He noted that Morocco usually worries when Algeria hammers out alliances with a strategic dimension to them, especially in the fields of security; energy; diplomacy, or armament.

Egypt has been keen to side with none of the parties competing over Western Sahara where Morocco claims sovereignty since the end of Spanish occupation of it in 1976, while Algeria backs the Polisario Front, a pro-independence movement representing the Sahrawi people

This has caused the 272,000-square kilometre territory, which is located in north-western Africa, to be a divisive issue in relations between the two states.

After initially offering rhetorical support to the Polisario Front in the 1970s, within a League of Arab States backing for liberation movements in the face of foreign occupation, Egypt reverted to a neutral stance on the Western Sahara issue in the face of the Algeria-Morocco stand-off.

In 2004, it offered to mediate between the two countries and later called for engaging the United Nations in reaching a settlement to the conflict.

In May 2025, Egypt abruptly withdrew from the Joint "Africa Peace 3" exercises, hosted by Algeria, in protest against participation in the exercises by the Polisario Front in violation of prior agreements for the exclusion of non-state actors in this activity.

The move, analysts said, signalled Cairo's discomfort over Algerian-Polisario alignment.

"Egypt actually doesn't want to be implicated in a conflict it has nothing to do with," Egyptian international relations researcher Mohamed Rabie al-Dehie told TNA.

"Nonetheless, its withdrawal from the exercises was far from an endorsement of the Moroccan position on Western Sahara," he added.

He noted that Egypt has been calling for a settlement of the conflict that passes through the United Nations and the international community.

Money matters

In maintaining a neutral stance on Western Sahara, Egypt prioritises its own political, strategic, economic and security interests, analysts argue.

Egypt pushes for de-escalation in North Africa to avoid a proxy war that could draw in other powers, which can exacerbate neighbouring Libya's instability, and ultimately have dire ramifications for Egypt's security, they added.

This stance primarily aims to ensure that Cairo loses none of the parties competing over the territory.

Egypt views Algeria, meanwhile, as a potential natural gas supplier, at a time Cairo tries to diversify sources to cushion effects from price fluctuations and geopolitical conflicts on supply.

In the past few years, natural gas has turned into a major issue for Egypt, a country with growing industrial activities, a burgeoning population and rising natural-gas centred ambitions.

A drop in national production has sent Egypt scrambling for suppliers in the international market, a move aiming at securing the populous country's needs, with dependence on natural gas for the operation of its electricity plants increasing.

Egypt also aspires to transform into a regional energy hub, but supply fluctuations, some of which have been caused by geopolitical tensions in the region, are slowing down the realization of such a dream.

For Egypt, Algeria offers a credible source of steady gas supplies, analysts in Cairo said.

Nevertheless, the Egyptian push for more robust ties with Algeria goes far beyond Egypt's gas craving.

Cairo is now introducing itself as a reconstruction model, parading new urban development projects and tens of billions of dollars-worth new cities established in the arid Egyptian desert as replicable examples in other countries.

When the Algerian prime minister visited, his Egyptian counterpart was keen to meet him in the New Administrative Capital, a new city almost the size of Singapore that has sprouted in the desert and marketed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the signature project of his presidency.

By the end of 2025, bilateral trade between Egypt and Algeria reached $1 billion, with energy serving as a cornerstone in this regard.

Egypt and Algeria hope they can increase their bilateral trade fivefold within the next three to five years so that this trade can reach $5 billion.

Egyptian Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli said this target is possible, but whether the achievement of such a target will come with no cost for relations with Rabat is a question the coming weeks and months will answer.

Here in Egypt, observers point to the purely economic nature of the evolving Egyptian-Algerian partnership.

"Egypt's policies towards all Arab states have always been balanced," Ambassador Mohamed Hegazi, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister, told TNA.

"I don't think Morocco will object to the expansion of economic and trade relations between Egypt and Algeria, which was the main objective of the latest visit of the Algerian prime minister to Cairo," he added.