In developed countries, especially Europe, a class of citizens with economic anxiety has arisen because of layoffs due to old policies, technological advances and outsourcing, rising costs of living, unmitigated stagnant wages, increasing debt and further social deterioration, and waves of illegal immigrants. As a result, governments have focused more on domestic policy, abandoning the shaping of foreign policy to profit-driven multinational corporations.

Conversely, developing countries have long envied the economic wealth of most northern hemisphere nations. Unfortunately, most of the former have not achieved a sophistication that can counter unfair trade practices, European colonial history and economic exploitation primarily driven by multinational corporations and other inadequacies.

Worse yet, multinationals have successfully married their profit-driven agendas to national interests so the two are now inseparable. The populist rhetoric of Trump’s economic and trade policies is a very clear example of the marriage between the West’s money and its political power.

In response, Europe has increasingly sought its own “miraculous transformation,” just like Brazil, Russia, India and China, by pitting competing foreign interests against each other for maximum benefit. Thus, developed nations struggling with domestic issues, and even spreading insecurity, are lured away by countries such as Russia and China determined to carve out spheres of influence and dependable export markets while the remains of Western hegemony are in full retreat.

Nevertheless, should the Western-led hegemony irreversibly crumble in favor of populism, isolationism, militant nationalism and kleptocracy, forging partnerships with developing nations would be an effective bulwark against the tit-for-tat diplomacy quickly changing the landscape of global cooperation and interdependency.

So, how does the European Union counter America’s flirtation with isolationism? How does the EU’s economic bloc deal with its dependence on Russian natural gas, given Moscow’s aggressive posturing through intrusion, election interference, military deployments and exercises, and unsettling rhetoric in its state-controlled media?

How does the EU respond to Brexit? How will the bloc respond to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which literally aims to have “all roads lead to Beijing”? Should instability and economic stagnation persist and violence remain in Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, how will the EU respond to a massive surge in immigrants and refugees?

As the world stands on the cusp of an irreversible “green revolution,” what role can or will the EU play? Where and how will the EU achieve outsized economic gains while gaining energy independence and large markets for goods and services? How can the EU stem massive immigration flows that cost so much in lives, treasure and human rights abuses, endangering those desperately fleeing violence and poverty?

The answer is relatively simple, despite the complications in making it happen. It is imperative for the EU to help revive and support the Arab Maghreb Union.

Rivalries between Algeria and Morocco and chaos in Libya have made it nearly impossible for the Union to arrive at a consensus to map out the group’s objectives and actively pursue them.

Hafed Al-Ghwell

The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), a now-dormant coalition of Arab countries of the Maghreb, a region of North Africa comprising Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, started as an idea among North African students in 1920s Paris that formed the Maghreb Association. In September 1964, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco signed a multinational agreement to cooperate and integrate their economies. They were joined later by Libya and Mauritania.

It is only logical that such a union would represent a major opportunity for Europe, given the region’s strategic location, prime Mediterranean coastline, entry into and exit from busy maritime lanes in the Mediterranean to and from the Suez Canal and the Black Sea, proximity to Europe, huge doorway into and out of Sub-Saharan Africa, enormous solar energy potential, and large phosphate, oil and gas reserves.

Unfortunately, as usual, politics and its realities have hamstrung the AMU’s economic potential. Specifically, rivalries between Algeria and Morocco over the Western Sahara’s fate and chaos in Libya have made it nearly impossible for the Union to arrive at a consensus to map out the group’s objectives and actively pursue them.

Regardless of the difficulties, the reality is that the AMU still presents more than $400 billion in nominal gross domestic product, a combined population of nearly 100 million, just over 60 billion barrels in oil reserves, nearly 5 percent of global natural gas reserves and the best spot on the planet for solar energy generation.

Additionally, AMU member nations have a Mediterranean coastline that stretches for more than 4,000km; Libya has the greatest share, at 1,700km. That makes this part of the world key to international stability and order in the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, North Africa and the Sub-Saharan Sahel region of Mali, Niger, Chad and parts of Nigeria and Northern Sudan.

This incredibly rich, strategic region presents a real, tangible opportunity for Europe, if it helps to encourage and support even minimum economic integration. This alone will enable the EU to address multiple threats to its political and economic challenges simultaneously, from illegal immigration across the Mediterranean to securing energy sources, making significant economic inroads into Africa and access to opening large markets for its goods and services. Without a doubt, this strategic opportunity should not be missed.

• Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior adviser at the international economic consultancy Maxwell Stamp and the geopolitical risk advisory firm Oxford Analytica, a member of Strategic Advisory Solutions International in Washington DC and a former adviser to the board of the World Bank Group. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell