The last European Council discussed the economic and social emergency that could cause Tunisia to implode. The risk is that migratory flows will increase. Here’s what’s happening.
We are once again talking about immigration in Europe and above all about what is happening in Tunisia.
The social-economic crisis threatens to make the country implode, collapsing on itself, causing a real mass "exodus", at least according to the estimates reported by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni during the last European Council.
The prime minister explained to her European colleagues that the crisis in Tunisia is now a bomb ready to explode, and risks overwhelming the Old Continent as well. Indeed, without sudden interventions, the Tunisian context could turn out to be very delicate both for Italy and for the rest of Europe, so much so as to venture the hypothesis of the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the coming years.
Faced with such a picture, it is appropriate to clarify to understand what is happening in Tunisia and what could happen if the system actually collapses.
Migrants, Tunisia bomb ready to explode: what is happening
The social-economic crisis that Tunisia is facing is the result of structural problems that have afflicted the state for years. The North African country has been considered several times as a virtuous example of the Arab spring: the wave of riots that between 2010 and 2011 spread with a domino effect and shocked numerous countries in North Africa and the Middle East.
The Tunisian revolution, which led to the overthrow of the then president Ben Ali in a very short time, originated from the political crisis and above all from a profound social-economic crisis, just remember the young salesman peddler Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself on fire in the square following the seizure of his goods. Episode that testified to the intolerance of a country exhausted by economic conditions. The revolution led to the formation of a new semi-presidential political system, where parliament and the prime minister have more power.
Yet, despite the apparent change of course, nothing has changed in the last decade, especially at economic level, due to the extreme litigiousness and splitting of parties, causing - as explained from Insideover - a shortage of investment, domestic and foreign, increasing inflation and budget problems. In 2019, discontent prompted Tunisians to place their trust in Kais Saied, a constitutionalist, independent candidate, who, after winning the elections and freezing the parliament, managed to push through constitutional changes, making the role a priority again of the head of state.
And if at the political level something has been achieved, in the economic field everything has remained unchanged. Saied’s main objective was probably to avoid recourse to loans from the IMF (International Monetary Fund), but Covid has exacerbated the economic problems. But what risks leading to the collapse of the Tunisian economic system is the war in Ukraine, since Tunisia like many other countries depends on imports of Ukrainian and Russian wheat. The war therefore led to a increase in prices of basic necessities. With inflation rising, budget maneuvers are increasingly limited due to the lack of economic resources. To date, Tunis risks dependence solely on the two billion euro loan plan of the IMF. Loans, however, linked to very harsh reforms, capable of accentuating the exasperation of the population.
Migrants, risk of increased landings from Tunisia: because landings could increase
In the face of such a situation, the alarms of the Italian government are more than understandable. The increase in poverty, the economic instability and the social abyss threaten to explode, prompting many Tunisians to embark towards the Sicilian coasts, with the risk that the landings may be always more.
According to data from theItalian Ministry of the Interior, the increase in landings from Tunisia in 2022 was impressive and the situation seems destined to worsen in 2023. In fact, according to sources in the Interior Ministry, in the first few months of the year there was a increase of 788% of landings from the Tunisian coasts. But that’s not all.
The reasons for an increase in barges heading towards Italy and the rest of Europe can also be traced in the migration policy adopted by President Kais Saied, who argued that the presence of irregular migrants in Tunisian territory is a threat "to the Arab cultural identity of the country", promising to encourage repatriations. Words that could have caused the escape of sub-Saharan migrants to Italy.
Hence the concerns of the Italian government. During the European Council, Giorgia Meloni spoke of a possible arrival of 900,000 migrants from Tunisia - a figure perhaps approximated by excess, but which makes the government worry. Rome’s position is therefore clear: Tunisia cannot fail and cannot be left alone as it faces a devastating crisis.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-04-10 07:45:00. Original title: Migranti, bomba Tunisia pronta a esplodere: perché gli sbarchi potrebbero essere sempre di più
