An official quadripartite Tunisian delegation has been in Oslo since Sunday, January 15, 2023, for a three-day visit to Norway. To do what? (Illustration: the Tunisian delegation upon its arrival at Oslo city hall).
The delegation includes the Minister of Economy and Planning, Samir Saied, and his colleague for Social Affairs, Malek Zahi, as well as the Secretary General of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT), Noureddine Taboubi, and the President of the Tunisian Union of Industry, Commerce and Crafts (Utica), Samir Major.
It is a hitch that is unusual to say the least and which raises questions. The destination also raises questions, because Norway is not among the countries with which Tunisia has strong political and economic relations that would justify such a visit by a delegation thus formed.
An unexpected hitch
According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, which announced it on its Facebook page on Sunday, the invitation came from the Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs (who usually invites his counterpart, which is not the case this time) and the president of the Confederation of Norwegian Trade Unions (LO) for Mr. Taboubi, and the President of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) for Mr. Majoul.
According to the statement, the visit includes “high-level meetings, conferences, and workshops on social and economic issues”. It “is part of the strengthening of bilateral cooperation relations in the economic and social fields between Tunisia and Norway”.
So much for the official jargon, but that says nothing specific about the real reason for this visit and the unexpected composition of the delegation.
When we know the difficult national context in which this visit is taking place, marked by the stalemate in political dialogue in the country and the absence of any prospect of ending the crisis in a country that is going through the most serious financial crisis in its recent history and which faces a social discontent threatening to explode at any time in clashes, one can imagine an attempt at conciliation between the Tunisian parties led by this Scandinavian country with legendary neutrality and whose mediation would be willingly accepted by the Tunisian public which does not I wouldn’t have liked Americans, French or other Westerners meddling in their affairs.
A Nobel Peace Prize is worth it
Why Norway? There is another argument that came into play: it is in Oslo that the National Dialogue Quartet, formed by the UGTT, Utica, the Tunisian Bar Council (Coat) and the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH) received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015… for having succeeded, through negotiation, in bringing Tunisia out of a serious political crisis which threatened to degenerate into war. civil.
Tunisia today finds itself in an almost similar situation, although more complicated, because to the political deadlock has been added an asphyxiating financial and economic crisis, and one can imagine that in Oslo, we wanted to try something to save what ‘we called, at the time, a little quickly, “the Tunisian exception”, and thus avoid that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded in 2015 be emptied of all its symbolic significance, and not only for Tunisia.
It is a question, once again, of shaking up the Tunisians, of calming their bellicose ardor and of reminding them of the reality of the great risks they run by continuing on the suicidal path which they are currently following with a power that does not want to hear anything, an opposition ready to do battle and a population that has lost confidence in everything and everyone, and which, in despair, can listen to the sirens of violence.
We can also consider that Norway (which, by the way, without any irony, had served as a theater for the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations) got down to this task in consultation with Tunisia’s historical partners, and their heads the United States and France, but also Italy, which are by no means indifferent to what is happening in our country and which seriously fear a deterioration in the situation liable to cause clashes and violence and, more seriously again, the bankruptcy of a state that has always played a peacemaking role in the south of the Mediterranean.
