Bessem Ben Dhaou –
SFAX (Tunisia). Tunisia and Italy have signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the field of management of migratory flows, which will allow Tunisians to find 4 thousand job opportunities in Italy. This occurred during the visit of the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to Tunisia and his meeting with his counterpart Nabil Ammar and President Kais Saied.
“The two ministers – reads a note from the Tunisian Foreign Ministry – signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in the field of management of migratory flows, which allowed the creation of an annual quota of four thousand non-seasonal residence cards, for a period of three years, for the benefit of Tunisian workers in Italy”. Saied commented that this is “a new approach that can be developed not only with Italy, but with a number of other countries”, and added that “In addition to that, we will work (with Italy) with objective of eliminating the causes that led to this inhuman phenomenon in the countries from which the waves of migrants come… people who are captured and managed by criminal networks”.
The President explained that “Tunisia is eager to fulfill its obligations, and in recent weeks the security forces have dismantled a large number of these criminal networks, but asks for help to provide state institutions with everything that human values require for assistance to stranded migrants.”
Minister Tajani underlined that “We want to give the opportunity to qualified and trained people to work in the agricultural and industrial sectors, not for them to arrive and wander around Italy”.
According to the latest data updated to 19 October 2023, at least 14,738 irregular immigrants of Tunisian origin have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year (of these 1,625 have been repatriated).
Tunisia signed a comprehensive memorandum of understanding with the European Union in July 2023 to combat irregular immigration and support the Tunisian economy, but it is still stalled due to disagreements over financial support.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi also called on the European Union to activate an agreement that would support Tunisia’s efforts to stop the departure of migrant boats.
In recent months, the pace of irregular immigration to Europe through Tunisia has increased, due to the repercussions of the economic and political crisis affecting the countries of the region.
