After a harsh vote by the EU Parliament, Tunis welcomed European Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni on Monday, who came to assure him of Brussels’ support. Difficult to find…
Was the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni, received in Carthage, as planned in the program of his whirlwind visit to Tunisia on March 27? His press release, released upon his departure, does not mention it, any more than the presidency of the Tunisian Republic.
Failing that, the Tunisians will remember at least from this day that Europe will not let go of Tunisia. Some also wonder about the reason for this sudden interest. The day before, 1,200 irregular migrants landed in Italy. Should there be a link? A priori no: these crossings are so common that they have become commonplace. “It’s the law of nature: when things go wrong, humans migrate” comments, fatalistic, a member of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
However, the migration issue is not insignificant for European leaders, at least for some of them. In the forefront of which is the President of the Italian Council, Giorgia Meloni, whose speech to the candidates for exile can be summed up in one formula: “Migrate where you want, except in Italy.”
Since her accession to power in October 2022, the leader of the Italian far right has pursued with determination the objective of putting an end to illegal migration by trying to impose on Tunisia, with financial support, the role of post surveillance system to prevent illegal immigrants from entering Europe through southern Italy.
Meloni’s relentlessness and feverishness are such that she even approached French President Emmanuel Macron, with whom relations had until then been more than cold. The maneuver has obviously worked: Rome and Paris now seem to speak with one voice on the subject and have apparently succeeded in changing the European position. Because if, two weeks ago, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on infringements of freedoms, including that of the press, noted in Tunisia, this vote was not followed by any particular measure during the meeting of European Ministers of Foreign Affairs, March 20.
The specter of migration
While many expected to see Europe freeze certain funding, the speech, under the influence of the Meloni-Macron tandem, focused instead on the need to save Tunisia from a general collapse caused by the abyssal deficit of its public finances. While there was no longer any question of providing financial support, French and Italians are now talking about pleading Tunisia’s cause with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which suspended, after a technical agreement in October 2022, the granting of a loan of 1.9 billion dollars to Tunisia in December.
Faced with European public opinion, such an argument stands: the theme of the external threat still works and makes the bed of a populism whose advances in Europe, but also in Tunisia, are notable. The new barbarian invasions come from the South and the old reactions are still alive. “Mom, here are the Turks”, headlined some Italian media in 2011, during the first waves of migration that followed the fall of the Ben Ali regime.
In Tunisia, on the other hand, the European discourse produces the opposite effect and bristles even those who, until then, said they were sensitive to Western positions. “It seems that everyone has agreed to want to put us under the yoke of the IMF by dangling us crumbs if we play the role of police guard for Europe. Someone should explain to us how we went from granting a loan to the problem of illegal migration. Should we be in tune with the North and comply with the conditions it lays down? asks an observer, who kept his distance from politics, but who says he has recently adhered to the positions of Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed on sovereignty.
The host of Carthage, precisely, chose not to comment on these European initiatives. He is silent, and his government is with him. Despite an urgent need for funding in order to put in place the new politico-economic system he has designed, despite the great precariousness in which the country finds itself, the president seems determined, as if inhabited by certainties or strong in certain assurances.
How can this paradoxical serenity be explained? According to those close to the government, the reason for this confidence is to be found in a report made in 2012 by geologists from the United States Geological Survey. In this document, the American specialists write that the maritime zone located between Tunisia and Libya is rich in underground reserves of colossal unprospected hydrocarbons. The report mentions 3.97 billion barrels of oil, 38.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and a potential 1.47 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas. A stock that would propel Tunisia to the rank of 6th world producer of oil and gas.
Oil dream
These resources would obviously offer Tunis an unexpected windfall… but nothing proves that they exist. The report remains speculative on the subject. And even in the event that these underwater reserves are real, it will take a few years before a possible entry into exploitation. “We would have time to die of thirst and hunger waiting for oil,” laughs a surfer.
Pending the materialization of this very hypothetical oil revenue, the country is still faced with its daily difficulties and the prospect – if we are to believe certain European leaders, Giorgia Meloni in the lead – of a short-term bankruptcy. On this level at least, the figures are known. The director of the daily newspaper Le Maghreb, Zyed Krichen, writes that “currency reserves of 22 billion make it possible to cover an external debt of 9 billion, but this will eat into the reserves so that without new external resources, the country will close 2023 with difficulties, but 2024 is high risk”.
On the markets, Tunis’s confidence rating is already at its lowest: since the failure of negotiations with the IMF, the country has found the door closed for all its requests for loans or financial support. Some, like the World Bank, are waiting to see the evolution of the situation, while the Arab countries, except Algeria, show no eagerness to come to the aid of the brotherly and friendly country. All are unanimous in demanding that Tunisia implement reforms in line with IMF demands, but some are unsustainable for the country, such as the increase in gasoline without a significant increase in salaries.
The confusion that currently dominates relations with Europe only increases the bitterness of Tunisians, who also show themselves to be without illusions. “The Europeans take care of us because they are afraid for themselves”, comment some, while others regret that Tunisia is given the role of overseer of the Italian borders when migration is also the many other countries in the region including Morocco, Libya and Egypt.
“It’s absurd to put Tunisia in this untenable and unworthy position, and to pay it for adopting a position contrary to human rights”, opposes a former volunteer from Doctors of the World. Others prefer to laugh at it, predicting that “all this will end with Tunisia’s integration into the European Union”, which would solve many problems. “After all, they joke, we are less than 12 million. »
