Tensions Over Participation: How Inclusive are Renewable Energy Partnerships Between the EU and Maghreb Countries?
By Philipp Wagner
This contribution is based on a talk presented as part of the MECAM Policy Talk 2024 and its side events. The event series focused on the opportunities and challenges of increased cooperation between Germany and the Maghreb in renewable energy and took place from November 27 to 29, 2024, in Berlin.
Energy transitions have become a key process around the globe to decarbonise economies in response to climate change. States all over the world have engaged in the expansion of renewable energy projects, among others as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the framework of the UNFCCC COP processes. Nevertheless, energy transitions do not only have a national dimension but are actively shaped from the outside through the cooperation between states, companies, and other transnational actors such as development agencies. Indeed, the transregional dimension of energy transitions is often overlooked: Through which entanglements, partnerships, and programmes do different public and private actors cooperate on specific renewable energy projects? And which players have a seat at the negotiating table in such a transnational setting?
Likewise, government actors and private corporations of the EU and the Maghreb are cooperating in diverse projects in the renewable energy sector. The primary goal is to achieve an expansion of renewable energies, even though this does not automatically entail a phase-out of fossil fuels and can rather lead to an overall energy expansion. Various infrastructure projects such as wind and solar parks, but also undersea cables and green hydrogen plants are actively promoted by European actors in the Maghreb countries. Their geographical proximity as well as suitable climatic conditions are often quoted as advantages for large-scale energy production in North Africa and potential energy exports to Europe.
In this contribution, I specifically discuss the decision-making behind renewable energy partnerships between the Maghreb and EU states. What is at stake is the place of local communities and citizens in the energy transitions of the Maghreb. I aim to unravel the forms of participation and political exclusions in these processes. Indeed, energy politics are about more than just technologies and numbers: Structural transformations such as the expansion of renewable energy infrastructures are not free of conflict since they are deeply entangled with questions of distribution, access, and participation. To illustrate this, the following essay aims to intervene in the debate on renewable energy partnerships with concrete policy evaluations and recommendations. I especially draw on interviews with different stakeholders in the Maghreb and the EU, participant observation, as well as policy analyses conducted in 2023 and 2024.

External support for the energy transition in the Maghreb: Whose knowledge is used?
Overall, international institutional and business cooperation in the field of renewable energies is well developed. Different European actors and member states politically and financially support diverse initiatives that promote the energy transition in North Africa and that aim to enable energy connectivity between the Maghreb and the EU.
For instance, development agencies such as German GIZ have been accompanying the technical processes of energy transitions and energy management in Tunisia and Morocco since the late 1990s/early 2000s already, e.g. in the drafting of energy strategies or further technical assistance. Specific European states such as Germany, France, Italy, or Spain have thereby gained a special role in the promotion of renewable energy strategies and projects in the Maghreb.
Interviewed representatives from ministries, energy agencies, and renewable energy companies from the Maghreb stated that European technical assistance is embedded in a long-standing partnership in the field of renewable energies, among others at the level of regulation or research. In turn, European energy analysts precisely observe the dynamics of energy transition in the Maghreb to better understand key laws and procedures that may enhance the production of green energy.
This is also the case since state and business actors from both the EU and the Maghreb aim to engage in renewable energy exchanges. Mega-projects such as Xlinks (from Morocco to the UK) or TuNur (from Tunisia to Italy) envisage the export of green electricity from the Maghreb to Europe through undersea cables. According to the Maghreb states’ strategies, the planned ramp-up of green hydrogen is also primarily intended to generate exports from the Southern to the Northern shores of the Mediterranean. These endeavours illustrate how strongly renewables have moved to the heart of business interests and energy security.
In this sense, the flow of standards, norms, and learning experiences between both sides of the Mediterranean is an inherent part of the renewable energy partnerships and connectivity efforts between the EU and the Maghreb.
At the same time, these projects of international cooperation are characterised by various lines of conflict since the energy transition is not a purely technical process but always has political and socio-economic impacts that are often overlooked.
On a governance level, local populations and social movements from different Maghreb countries reported that they felt excluded from decision-making on renewable energy strategies such as green hydrogen roadmaps or specific projects for wind or solar parks. The knowledge that is used in renewable energy partnerships seems to draw rather on technical and financial actors while the geographical and socio-economic knowledge of local communities is partly sidelined.
Often only selected and professionalised NGOs are consulted for these purposes, while trade unions or informal local movements remain largely excluded from participation processes. To illustrate this, an activist in the field of energy stated in an interview that in their perception, donors and project developers only invite “a fake civil society” during consultation processes for new energy strategies.
Transparency and meaningful local participation in renewable energy projects should therefore be increased, from the local to the transnational level. In other words, the promotion of the energy transition and efforts at making governance systems more inclusive must be discussed together instead of dividing them into separate silos.

The need to embed energy in the distribution of natural resources
Various lines of conflict also go beyond green energy as such. Indeed, energy should always be analysed in a nexus and link with other topics to have a holistic vision on environmental transitions.
Renewable energy infrastructures offer the possibility for more delocalised and decentralised deployment. At the same time, they interact with natural resources such as land and water which was often addressed in interviews and criticism: When renewable energy projects contribute to the privatisation and deprivation of natural resources instead of making them more accessible to local communities, this leads to new forms of socio-economic exclusions in the energy transition.
This risk concerns first of all land issues: Since mega-projects such as wind or solar parks require large amounts of land, conflicts around land use in the field of agriculture could arise. This was for example the case in Morocco, where residents have complained about expropriations of collective agricultural land for the Noor Ouarzazate Solar Power Station.
Even though the ramp-up of the green hydrogen economy is still at an early stage, different interviewees mentioned their concerns that energy projects could negatively impact the local water distribution and increase water scarcity which is already high in the Maghreb. This criticism especially targets envisaged green hydrogen plants which would require large quantities of water for the electrolysis process. While seawater desalination is often suggested as a technological solution for water supply, it is an energy-intensive process and has significant environmental impacts on marine ecosystems.
In addition to improvements on transparency, the actual distribution of the benefits of mega-projects and associated resources to local populations need to be enhanced in consequence.
How to achieve proximity to local consumers and populations?
Different forms of downstream energy use and access for private consumers are in the centre of debates about local gains in energy transitions. It is thus essential to create awareness for different levels of renewable energy production and distribution: Instead of enhancing only mega-projects for the potential export of (green) energy to Europe, decentralised small-scale energy solutions with stronger ownership for citizens should be given greater support as well.
In Morocco and Algeria, such programs mostly exist for the electrification of rural areas but have so far not been supported by dedicated subsidy schemes. In contrast, Tunisia has implemented specific programs and subsidy initiatives for distributed solar installations in private households since the 2000s. These include the Prosol program for solar water heaters and Prosol Elec for photovoltaic panels whereby consumers repay their loan through their electricity bills to the state electricity company STEG.
Through decentralised technologies, citizens could economically benefit from own rooftop solar installations which can strengthen local ownership – even though the expansion of small-scale installations is not more democratic per se and can also increase unequal socio-economic distribution. Indeed, to avoid that only higher-middle class households are able to afford private solar installations, initiatives should be introduced that also address energy poverty as well as regional and socio-economic disparities. In the case of Tunisia, the recently started project Prosol Elec Economique already takes a step in this direction by making solar installations more easily accessible and affordable to middle-income households outside of bigger cities.
Nevertheless, civil society members in Tunisia from trade unions, movements, and NGOs also suggested the introduction of energy cooperatives as we can find them in Denmark or Germany to strengthen democratic participation and public ownership in the energy transition. Overall, these initiatives aim to counterbalance the commodification of energy and introduce it rather as a public good that can be shared between communities without generating profits.
The expansion of small-scale solutions could also stabilise the job market for solar installers and boost long-term job creation which is not dependent on short construction phases for mega-projects only.
Towards stronger criteria for inclusivity
Comprehensive political participation is therefore key in transregional energy transitions and renewable energy partnerships. This entails not only the strengthening of procedural democratic mechanisms for the integration of local knowledge and voices but goes actually deeper: Energy transitions need to be embedded in larger bargaining processes around socio-economic distribution, access, and ownership to be truly inclusive. It is therefore necessary to (re-)localise and distribute accountability, agency, and benefits to affected local groups, especially in a transregional setting in which decisions and funding on green energy projects are largely shaped from the outside.
About the Author
Philipp Wagner is a doctoral researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute in Freiburg, Germany. His research interests are renewable energy politics especially in the European Union and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), transregional infrastructure politics, climate governance, as well as socio-political participation. With the support of a scholarship by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, he obtained a German-French master’s degree in applied political science from the University of Freiburg and Sciences Po Aix in 2022. Before starting his doctoral project, he has worked in the field of climate protection and energy transition in think tanks and NGOs. He is also affiliated with the Merian Center for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) at the University of Tunis, as well as with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) Munich.
Citation: Philipp Wagner, Tensions Over Participation: How Inclusive are Renewable Energy Partnerships Between the EU and Maghreb Countries?, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 25.03.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/55935
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (March 25, 2025). Tensions Over Participation: How Inclusive are Renewable Energy Partnerships Between the EU and Maghreb Countries? TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved April 20, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13k8b