Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister was reported to touch down in Tunisia at about 10am on Tuesday (June 6). The visit was organized quickly, in the last 48 hours, according to Italian newspapers, including Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy’s financial broadsheet.
Meloni’s brief visit follows months of diplomatic overtures between the two countries, aimed at bolstering Tunisia’s economy and preventing a financial crisis that could potentially trigger a new round of migrant departures towards Europe.
"At the heart of our concerns is maintaining the stability of this country [Tunisia]," explained Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in a brief interview broadcast on Italy’s Sky News 24.
Meloni and her team were expected to meet with Tunisian Prime Minister Najla Bouden Ramadan and President Kais Saied during the visit. Italy has been concerned for some time over Tunisia’s finances and economy. Without securing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, the North African country risks defaulting financially and spinning out of control economically and politically.
“If the Tunisian government goes down, it would be very worrying. We are trying to avoid this scenario,” Tajani explained on Sky News 24.
Working to release IMF funds
Il Sole 24 Ore reported that Meloni’s visit was to try and make sure that European funds, to the tune of about €500 million could once again flow to Tunisia, as well as trying to release almost $2 billion (around €1.8 billion) in loans from the IMF. In return, Meloni was hoping that President Saied would agree to be more flexible about the reforms demanded by the IMF as conditions for the release of funds.
Conditions, that up until now Saied has rejected as "unacceptable."
"I have told President Saied that we fully respect Tunisia’s sovereignty, but as Tunisia's friend, Italy is going to great lengths to make sure that we arrive at a positive conclusion with the IMF, which is absolutely fundamental to getting Tunisia back on its feet again," said Meloni during her visit, reported Il Sole 24 Ore.
In March, the Italian government warned that if Tunisia were to allowed to default, as many as 900,000 migrants could potentially leave the shores of North African countries and make their way to Europe. This figure, explained by the UN Migration Agency IOM’s Flavio Di Giacomo to InfoMigrants, was not realistic.
Arrivals to Italy in May slightly down compared to previous years
When he spoke to InfoMigrants at the beginning of May, Di Giacomo warned against sounding the kind of alarms that the Italian government did in March. The numbers, he explained, seemed to be based on the number of foreign nationals present in North African countries, rather than on the numbers who had expressed their interest in leaving for Europe. Earlier this year though, the numbers leaving Tunisia for Europe surpassed even those leaving Libya.
