After the announcement, on Sunday January 28, of their departure from ECOWAS, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso should strengthen their cooperation within the AES, the Alliance of Sahel States. This structure was first created last September to fight against jihadist groups. But this alliance is also intended to be economic and political.
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The AES was originally created as a defense pact: the MaliTHE Niger and the Burkina Faso had decided to pool their military resources to fight rebel or jihadist groups. Then the three countries wanted to go further and found a real economic and political union. This was the subject of a meeting in Bamako at the end of November 2023.
Read alsoMeeting in Bamako to make the alliance of Sahel States a political and diplomatic coalition
The meeting then concluded with the stated desire to progress towards the establishment of a federation federation bringing together Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
After Sunday’s announcement of their departure from ECOWAS, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso should strengthen their cooperation within the AES, the Alliance of Sahel States.
“ The AES is based on a treaty which forms a collective security alliance, that is to say its various members undertake to react in the event of aggression, or in the event of an attack, against one of the members. . And today, we can imagine a strengthening of economic cooperation, especially a diplomatic alliance to form a real bloc and act as a counterweight to the other ECOWAS States, believes Julien Antouly, researcher in international law, reached by telephone by Pierre Firtion from the Africa editorial team. We know that the signing of the charter creating the AES gave rise to several high-level diplomatic meetings.
However, to date, no information has been given on the institutions that will be implemented. We can also imagine that military cooperation, on the one hand, takes time to be implemented and, on the other hand, that certain dimensions of cooperation will not necessarily be announced in broad daylight. »
Read alsoECOWAS: the departure of Mali, Niger and Burkina comes after months of tension