EU Urges Tunisia to Accept IMF Bailout to Address Migration Crisis

After the recent tragic sinking of a migrant boat off the coast of Greece, and as the explosion in the number of illegal Mediterranean crossings worries Europe, the French and German interior ministers were at the end of June visiting Tunisia.

A few days earlier, Italy, the Netherlands and the European Union (EU) had sent their senior officials to meet with representatives of the Tunisian government [ce trio est de retour en Tunisie dimanche 16 juillet pour finaliser le partenariat].

In an attempt to defuse the migration crisis in the Mediterranean and to release the loans that Tunisia is requesting from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and her Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, accompanied by the President of the Commission European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, had made the trip to meet the populist government of Kaïs Saïed. This shows how much Tunisia interests the EU.

Pushed by Italy, the EU puts pressure on Tunisia, in a bad financial patch, to accept an IMF bailout of 1.9 billion dollars [1,75 milliard d’euros] : it should make it possible to bail out a battered Tunisian economy, the dreaded collapse of which could result in an unprecedented increase in the flow of illegal emigration.

Financial dictates or migratory injunctions

At the end of the discussions, Ursula von der Leyen announced an aid plan of 1 billion euros for Tunisia to raise the bar. In addition, an envelope of 105 million euros is allocated to it to strengthen its border controls and fight against human trafficking and dangerous crossings.

But Kaïs Saïed rejected the “dictates” of the IMF and affirmed that his country, although in difficulty, did not intend to play the “frontier guard