All the objectives of the EU and Italy in the relationship with Saied’s Tunisia
Objectives, unknowns and scenarios of the partnership in the economic field between the EU and Tunisia. Conversation with Michela Mercuri, analyst and professor of Culture, History and Society of Muslim Countries at the University of Padua
According to Michela Mercuri, analyst and professor of Culture, History and Society of Muslim Countries at the University of Padua, reducing or at least containing landings originating from Tunisia is the primary objective of the umpteenth Euro-Italian mission to the North African country from which most of the migrants who land on our shores come from.
This is what Michela Mercuri underlines in a conversation with Start Magazine , who also explores the theme of the partnership in the economic and energy field between the EU and Tunisia designed to intensify cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean.
What is the context in which Prime Minister Meloni's latest mission takes place and what are its objectives?
The Tunisian context is really complex to outline, there are many elements to take into consideration. First of all, out of approximately 51,000 landings from 1 January to 1 June this year, more than half came from the Tunisian coast. So one of the first reasons for this strong interest in Tunisia is that of migration.
Migrations that originate from Tunisia but that don't see Tunisians as the first protagonists, right?
Yes, it should be rightly pointed out that these landings are not made up predominantly of Tunisians but mostly of sub-Saharan citizens: among the main nationalities there are Guinea and Ivory Coast. So Tunisia is becoming a hub for criminal organizations that profit from migrants.
Let's go back to the visit of Meloni and the other European leaders. What were the other factors at play ?
Tunisia is experiencing an economic context that is close to default. This factor could increase not only the departures of Tunisians but also the business of criminal organizations which naturally take advantage of poverty also to recruit new traffickers.
Is Tunisia in conditions that we can define as desperate?
Yes: we are talking about a country that at the moment has a youth unemployment rate that is close to 40%, a public debt that has almost reached 100% of GDP and a growing inflation rate that currently exceeds 10%. All these elements make the country deeply unstable. Added to this is the turbulence of an internal policy that does not facilitate the IMF aid that Tunisia had requested: I recall the tightening made by President Saied on individual freedoms and the arrest of numerous political exponents of opposing parties among which the by Ennhada Rachid Ghannouchi.
How can Europe and Italy intervene in this complicated situation?
Europe's primary objective is to reduce departures. This is thought to be achieved by implementing various strategies: the first is to help the Saied government get the IMF money. Added to these are European funding: yesterday there was talk of a figure of around 900 million which will be disbursed in the shortest possible time to avoid the catastrophic consequences of a default by Tunisia.
Many criticize Europe and Italy itself for having decided to treat a populist dictator as an interlocutor. Who's wrong?
It is important to dialogue with Saied because in this way we can try to soften his authoritarian grip. Saied clearly must remain our interlocutor, otherwise we would have no one to talk to and thus we would end up in a situation on the Libyan model.
Europe, and Meloni with it, have outlined a partnership with Tunisia on economic and energy cooperation as well as on migration. Can it work?
It is to be hoped that this partnership works; that is, we must hope that the memorandum set up yesterday will become a real tool for collaboration between Tunisia and the EU. It would be a partnership in which Italy would represent the primary actor not only in Tunisia but throughout North Africa: a role that Italy had lost in recent years and which represents the natural projection of the foreign policy of a Mediterranean power such as the Italy. Let us remember that counting in the Mediterranean also means counting in Europe.
And on the energy question, what prospects open up?
The energy dimension is certainly important, because the greater the investments in this field – I am thinking, for example, of the electricity interconnection grid which will be built soon and which sees Terna as the protagonist – the greater the advantages that the participants in the partnership could obtain and therefore also Tunisia which would see the welfare of its population increase.
However, the concern remains for the migratory flows on which Saied himself has declared that he is not willing to cooperate docilely. Among other things, the one that passes through Tunisia is an increasingly popular route.
The intensification of migratory pressure from Tunisia derives from factors which obviously are not all internal to the country. Certainly the already mentioned negative data of the Tunisian economy and in particular the time bomb of youth unemployment have an impact. But there is another factor to take into account and that is that the Libyan route is for the moment more controlled both as regards the western border, i.e. Tripolitania, and for those to the east of Cyrenaica. I would like to remind you that on 4 May General Haftar came to Italy and in some way made an agreement with the Italian government to reduce the flows from Cyrenaica. So, with the Libyan route closed, the migrants are now trying to pass through Tunisia and the traffickers are reorganizing themselves accordingly.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutti-gli-obiettivi-di-ue-e-italia-nel-rapporto-con-la-tunisia-di-saied/ on Mon, 12 Jun 2023 06:07:33 +0000.