This opening does not mean a change of orientation. It will not damage the relationships with the existing partners. Indeed, Morocco remains loyal to its commitments, linked to its historical allies (…). Equally, Morocco will put all efforts to reinforce the strategic South/South partnership, particularly with the African brothers.1King Mohammed VI, Fête du Trône, Morocco, 30 July 2016
The Moroccan King, Mohammed VI, gave a speech on 30 July 2016 to celebrate the 63rd anniversary of the King and People’s Revolution, in which he announced his commitment to open the country to new partners, in particular those from the Global South. The King underlined the need for Southern countries to develop the strength to overcome issues of poverty, extremism and war. Without rejecting the historical, often ex-colonial, allies, his speech reinforced the need for more cooperation with regional partners, including the Gulf and African countries, and to foster the regional capacity of the Global South (Kingdom of Morocco 2016). This talk can be seen as an expression of Southern emancipation, which penetrates almost all areas of social and political life. Taking regulation in the area of information and communications technologies (ICT), this study explores emancipation in a field in which today’s regulatory choices have long-lasting consequences.
In this study, I investigate regulatory reforms in the telecommunications sector in three selected developing economies—Egypt, Jordan and Morocco—with a focus on the role of regional and European trends. Common knowledge suggests that the European Union (EU) and its member states are the main influential regulatory power in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. For instance, Europeanisation literature expects that the EU pushes its own regulatory model not only to member states but also to partner countries, which do not have prospect of accession (Cardwell 2011; Lavenex 2008; Sasse 2008). However, the empirical analysis of selected MENA telecommunications regulations reveals that reforms are not always determined by European countries but may also originate from other developing countries, notably from Latin America.
I argue that, in cases where a field is not strongly politicised and in which the costs are not high, it is possible for MENA countries to show emancipation by adopting policies that do not originate from the EU. This is observed in the case of universal service obligation (USO) policies implemented by states to ensure that telecommunications services not only reach the most remote parts of countries but also concentrate around larger cities. In the case of the adopted USO model in Morocco, regulatory influence originates from Peru rather than the EU. This illustrates a will for emancipation from the EU partner, without jeopardising the EU–Morocco relationship. In fact, USO policies represent an ideal case for taking distance from the traditional partner and proving the sophistication of a country’s regulation, if there is a will to do so. At the same time, such a non-politicised and non-costly subsector as USO can become an ideal tool to show commitment to the EU partner, which is seen in the Jordanian case.
MENA countries have experienced a dramatic increase in their spread and consumption of ICT services since the early 2000s. A booming young and urban population has quickly adopted “smart” mobile phones, through which internet is provided (ITU 2014). The relevance of ICT in this part of the world became evident during the 2011 upheavals. Without reducing the political awakening of the Arab world to the simple usage of internet and mobile technologies, it has become common knowledge that ICT is at the core of the next generation (Guaaybess 2013).
As of 2014, the total population of MENA countries amounted to 340 million, of which 60 per cent lived in cities. An average of 39.5 per cent of this population is under 25 years old,2 as shown in Table 1.1 (Eurostat 2015; UN 2017; World Bank 2017), which represents an immense potential market for digital technologies. In all three country cases the use of mobile phones increased—from approximately 8 per cent in Jordan/Morocco and 2 per cent in Egypt, respectively, in 2000 to more than 100 per cent in each of them in 2014 (World Bank 2017). This shows that in a little more than a decade, the mobile ICT usage by MENA citizens evolved from close to none to more than one mobile subscription per person.
Table 1.1
Population and mobile phone subscription
Population below 24 years old (%) (2015) | Mobile phone subscription (%) (2000) | Mobile phone subscription (%) (2014) | |
|---|---|---|---|
Egypt | 48.4 | 1.9 | 114.3 |
Jordan | 53.5 | 8.1 | 147.8 |
Morocco | 43.2 | 8.1 | 131.7 |
The market potential of young connected MENA citizens has been recognised by international companies. Given the geographical proximity and historical ties, European companies are likely to be particularly active in the ICT markets of MENA countries. Indeed, economic interests are vested in the Euro-Mediterranean telecommunications context. A large number of cables connect the EU member states with MENA countries, except for the West Bank and Gaza. Egypt plays a major role with a connection made up of 13 cables, compared to 2 for Jordan and 5 for Morocco (World Bank 2014:65). Since the cables were built to link both sides of the Mediterranean, connections between MENA countries are almost non-existent, and as of 2014 only one broadband cable linked Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya (World Bank 2014:64). Moreover, the Euro-Mediterranean interlinkage in the telecommunications sector is visible in the presence of large multinational companies that have their headquarters in EU member countries, such as the French Orange and British Vodafone.
Due to the corporate presence of European companies in MENA countries, and given that the rapid technological changes require new or revised regulations to manage the sector efficiently (Padovani and Pavan 2011), international, and in particular European, actors can be expected to seek to extend their influence by promoting their regulations as a model to follow. Indeed, the EU, and specifically the European Commission (EC), has risen as a dominant actor setting standards, largely in order to bridge its own deficiencies, notably the lack of compatibility between ICT systems among EU member states (Humphreys and Padgett 2006; Thatcher 2007). The EU also extended its influence to international arenas, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Telecommunication Union ( ITU) (Rodine-Hardy 2013:46). The standardised policies of the EC became an available and practical model to follow for both EU member states and extra-European countries, specifically within the EU–MENA region.
In fact, a growing number of telecommunications conferences, programmes and joint regulatory groups, such as the New Approaches to Telecommunications Policy ( NATP), the Euro-Mediterranean Regulators Group (EMERG) and telecommunications twinnings,3 manifest a strong regulatory linkage between the EU and MENA regions. Furthermore, EU and MENA countries are all part of the ITU Region 1, and hence share the same spectrum range, as allocated by the ITU. Countries that are part of the same ITU Region tend to harmonise standards to facilitate the sharing of equipment and benefit the markets of scale (Mattli and Büthe 2003). In consequence, and according to existing studies of EU rule adoption (see Bennett 1991; Brooks 2007; Dobbin et al. 2007), one would expect MENA countries to adopt the European models of telecommunications regulation.
However, in this study, variance in adoption is observed in the three country cases, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, and in the two selected subsector cases, USO and spectrum management. This shows that explanations based on the EU regulatory influence or being part of a similar ITU Region (as is the case for EU and MENA countries) are not sufficient to account for the different results. In fact, when considering the diverging market specifications of the EU and the MENA countries, the adequacy of the EU model is questionable (Hollis 2013). While the EU model is built on fixed tel...