A group of Tunisian and European economists is calling for €20 billion ‘Marshall Plan’ for Tunisia to be set up. They will be relaying their call to MEPs and national parliamentarians ahead of a vote at the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11617) and a few weeks ahead of the announced adoption of a report by the European Commission and the Council’s European External Action Service on Tunisia and aid for the country provided by international donors since the G8 summit in Deauville, France, in 2011.
The group says the call is a "final alarm call" addressed first and foremost at the upcoming (second and last) international donor conference, which will take place in Tunis on 29 and 30 November and which the EU will attend. The first donor conference, in September 2014, generated many broken promises from both donors and Tunisia itself. Setting the country’s economic management straight seems to be taking time and a new Strategic Plan 2016-2020 is proposed. Domestic political and economic instability and upheavals in the region, particularly strong terrorist pressure from Libya, have held back the reforms demanded by the international community. The group says the situation is now so bad as to merit an alarm call.
The economists’ call is in fact a repeat of one made on the fringes on the Deauville G8 summit. They explain in the new report that five years later, while Tunisia has consolidated its democratic transition and continues to benefit from a strong wave of sympathy, the international community’s support has been parsimonious, to put it mildly. They say they have the collective responsibility to ensure that the transition succeeds and to demonstrate that economic cooperation is the best barrier to extremism. They also point out the risk of bad coordination of action. The group is calling for a clear statement about methods of mobilisation and coordination among the various financial institutions (IMF, World Bank, EBRD, EIB, BAD and BID) so that they can contribute in the best way to growth and restructuring of the Tunisian economy.
The group also moots an old idea of allowing Tunisia full access to the European Structural Funds because it is crucial for the international community to show solidarity with Tunisia so that it can be and remain an example to be followed in terms of social, economic and democratic change for the entire region and beyond. Some experts say that Tunisia’s special and unique situation requires it to be granted "special status". (Original version in French Fathi B’Chir)