For almost a year and a half, the affair of “Italian waste” illegally imported into Tunisia from Italy has not ceased to agitate political life and public opinion on both sides of the Mediterranean.
While 212 containers, or 7,900 tons of household waste, have been languishing since May 2020 at the port of Sousse, Tunis and Rome announced on January 7 that they had reached an agreement to return this waste to their country of origin. The date of return and the detailed content of the agreement remain unknown to this day, but the repatriation “cannot be delayed”, according to the Tunisian Minister of Affairs, Othman Jerandi.
Back to the case
Since the revelation of the case in November 2020 by the program “The four truths” on the El Hiwar Ettounsi channel, the now-famous “Italian waste” has not stopped talking about them. In Tunisia, 26 executives were arrested and prosecuted, including former environment minister Mustapha Laroui, imprisoned to this day. The manager of the Tunisian company, Moncef Noureddine, at the origin of this fraudulent importation is meanwhile still at large.
Despite the environmental scandal and the certain existence of a vast network of corruption, as revealed by an investigation by the Inkyfada media, the affair took time to interest the Tunisian and Italian authorities. The legal deadlines for repatriation set by Tunisian law and the Basel Convention, which legislates on the cross-border movement of hazardous waste, expire one after the other. On the Italian side, the Italian company SRA at the origin of the export of this waste and called into question by the Italian justice played the clock by filing numerous appeals against the decisions issued by the administrative court of Campania.
Pending an “amicable solution” through the legal process, as desired by Tunisia, the waste languishes at the port of Sousse, and their toxicity worries the authorities. “The waste presents a major risk of contamination (presence of leachate and undesirable gaseous emission)”, had alerted the Tunisian Ministry of the Environment to its Italian counterpart via a confidential letter.
In addition to the health and environmental hazard, the storage of containers represents a lot of money in view of the considerable space they occupy and which could be used to store other goods.
Diplomatic negotiations
“If we want this affair to find a way out and that this waste returns to where it came from, diplomacy must take hold of it,” warned Nidhal Attia, a member of the Green Tunisia network.
On December 28, 2021, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio traveled to Tunis for talks with President Kais Saied, including to address this thorny issue. At the end of this meeting, a Facebook press release from the Tunisian presidency was published, emphasizing “the need to accelerate the repatriation of waste as soon as possible”.
Today, negotiations to define the terms of this agreement are going well. Contacted by Mondafrique, Othman Jerandi, Tunisian Foreign Minister assured that “Italy is actively preparing to receive this waste, it is only a matter of days”.
