common destiny

12 years after the jasmine revolution, Tunisia is back in the spotlight. It has largely replaced Libya as the first place of departure for migrants to Italy and, unfortunately, sub-Saharan migrants set out on fragile steel boats hastily built to sail to neighboring Italy, running mortal risks. Meanwhile, the revolution that ousted strongman Ben Ali has failed due to incompetent politicians and corruption.

The country has thus entrusted itself to Kais Sayed, a university professor who is a champion of direct democracy and anti-politics. Saied has launched a close fight against corruption, however, restricting all possible spaces of democracy and transforming the country into an autocracy. In addition, the great economic crisis - first due to the impact of the Covid pandemic which killed mass tourism, then to climate change which raised prices and finally to the coup de grace given by the war in Ukraine which led to inflation above 10 percent – have brought Tunisia to its knees. A challenge for our country which has become Tunisia's first commercial partner and which has very deep historical and cultural ties with us, including very deep human ones. Not to mention the 200,000 Tunisians who live and work in Italy and the thousands of pensioners who have moved to Hammamet. But obviously in Italy lacking the necessary double gaze on Africa, in addition to the migratory one in a security key, we tend to speak only of Tunis for potential or presumed flows.

If Tunisia collapses and this trend continues, we risk seeing up to 900,000 refugees arrive in the summer, is Prime Minister Meloni's alarm to Europe. An unlikely figure, given that Tunisia currently has perhaps 20-30 thousand sub-Saharans and - even if the borders with Libya and Algeria are porous - one million people do not move so quickly. And that the 12 million Tunisians leave the country en masse in just three months seems quite strange. Of course, the country risks imploding, but comparisons with Libya still seem like a gamble, because there is no ongoing civil war and, despite the authoritarian drift, Tunisian institutions are holding up. The main cause of flight of sub-Saharan migrants from Tunisia is the xenophobic climate created by President Sayed's racist speech last February 20 when he declared that migrants from Africa - as if Tunisia were Europe - wanted to replace the population ethnically. An unworthy speech, condemned by the international community, but which has had serious effects such as attacks on those with dark skin. Probably Sayed, imitating Erdoğan and the Libyan governments, put pressure on Europe to obtain economic aid. The real crux is in fact the economic and financial one. In order not to fail, the coastal state needs a loan of 1.9 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund, which in exchange is asking for a robust cut to the state industry on which the Tunisian economy is based and the cut subsidies for bread and petrol which could, however, trigger a second revolution. It is therefore necessary for Europe and Italy to assume a decisive role of mediation with the International Monetary Fund to prevent Tunisia from going bankrupt, on pain of instability for the whole of North Africa. But it's not just a matter of geopolitics. This country that sees Italy as the guide must be saved and integrated into the Mediterranean. Not only for the economic and energy interests of Rome and ENI, but because this is the first brick of a new policy which aims to build a common destiny between Europe and Africa.


Paolo Lambruschi
NP April 2023