Małgorzata Czarnik, Bartosz Mirowski, Maciej Pawłowski

Tunisia is a key partner for the EU in the fight against illegal migration on the Central Mediterranean route.
President Kais Sayed is a difficult and unpredictable partner for the EU. However, he provides Tunisia with the political stability that the country lacked after the Arab Spring.
Sayed’s economic policies are not conducive to reducing the migration of Tunisians to the EU.

October 6, this year. Kais Sayed won the presidential election in Tunisia with 90% of the vote on a 27% turnout. His victory signifies the continuation of a policy that gradually undermines democracy, civil liberties, and economic interventionism. The president’s envisaged policies are likely to increase or at least maintain the interest in migration among young Tunisians. Sayed will continue to be a challenging partner for the EU in countering irregular migration. Nevertheless, his rule provides political stability, which gives hope that the agreements reached with EU countries will be sustainable.

Reasons for migration

Migration from Tunisia to the EU is primarily economic in nature. Representatives from all social groups make this decision. A segment of the population desires to emigrate, but due to their employment in Tunisia, they are unable to save the necessary funds to relocate. The situation stems from economic stagnation and high unemployment rates, which averaged 17% between 2012 and 2022, and reached a high of 37% among the young (15-24 years old). Tunisian industry lacks sufficient potential, and a significant portion of the population works in sectors susceptible to economic fluctuations, like tourism and services.

Sayed’s protectionist policies offer no chance of reversing negative economic trends. Restricting imports leads to rising inflation (11% in 2023) and regulates the prices of basic foodstuffs such as sugar, flour, and bread, causing periodic shortages in the shops. Sayed’s policy of gradually controlling institutions and moving away from democracy is popular with the poor and pensioners. However, the under-30s, whose participation in elections was only 6%, perceive it negatively. Therefore, political factors may also contribute to future immigration.

Legal migration

Most Tunisians seek to enter the EU through legal migration. Between 2014 and 2023, 1,694,253 Tunisians made the decision to apply for a Schengen visa. 78.4% of the applications were successful. There was a noticeable decrease in the percentage of applications accepted; for 2014-2018, the average was 83.5%, while this decreased to 71.3% between 2019 and 2023. For 2019-2023, there was a 37.4% decrease in the total number of applications submitted compared to the previous five years, but this is a result of movement restrictions during the pandemic.

The main destination for Tunisians’ legal migration is France. Between 2020 and 2022, applications to this country accounted for approximately 60% (183,579) of all applications to Schengen countries. This choice is mainly due to the use of a common language, cultural proximity, and the existence of a large Tunisian diaspora in France, numbering more than one million people. The next most popular destinations for Tunisians’ legal migration are Germany (31,173 applications between 2020 and 2022), Italy (28,965), and Spain (23,094). These three countries together accounted for more than 27% of all visa applications to the Schengen Area in 2020–2022.

The demographic decline and resulting labour shortages in sectors like construction and services are driving Tunisians to emigrate to Italy or Spain. Germany, which has been pursuing a pro-migrant policy for several years, faces similar problems. By October of this year, they had issued more work permits to Tunisians than in the whole of 2023. Representatives of major German companies are also involved in the whole process, helping Tunisians legalise their arrivals and even paying for German language courses.

Visa fraud affects Tunisia, as it does other countries in the region. Young people, who see no prospects for improving their material situation, primarily take this risk. The scale of this practice is difficult to estimate, and there is a lack of reliable data. However, it is possible to identify popular scam techniques, such as marriages of convenience, false employment information, or remaining in the EU after the expiration of a tourist visa. These phenomena are so common that a Tunisian woman met by chance offered one of the analysis’s authors a ‘paper marriage’ while he was in Tunis.

Migration to the EU for many Tunisians is a project only for the duration of their working lives. While living abroad, they maintain regular contact with their country of origin and visit it at least once a year. It is also popular to return to Tunisia to spend the retirement there. People of retirement age return not only because of attachment but also because of the low prices of services that make daily life easier for the elderly and the low cost of living in Tunisia compared to, for example, France.

Irregular migration

Tunisia is a country of both transit and origin for migrants. Sub-Saharan Africans (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Burundi, Botswana, and Equatorial Guinea) have been crossing its border for years, considering it not only as a place offering better living conditions but also as a hub from which they can further access Europe. Indeed, the country is the last African leg of the Central Mediterranean route, through which 885 000 migrants entered the EU illegally between 2015 and 2024. Of these, 85,000 (10%) were Tunisians and 800,000 were citizens of other countries.

President Kais Sayed is trying to mobilise the public against sub-Saharan African migrants, but the majority of Tunisians do not succumb to racist sentiments. In February 2023, he said, ‘The undeclared aim of further waves of illegal immigration is to declare Tunisia a purely African country with no affiliation to Arab and Islamic nations’. He accused unnamed parties of complicity in a criminal agreement to change Tunisia’s demographic structure at the beginning of this century. Following these words, many migrants reported not leaving their homes due to fear of arrest. Simultaneously, the president’s policies sparked over 3,000 protests. The demonstrators accused Sayed of racism and of attempting to divert public attention from the failures of his economic policies and violations of democratic principles.

Many Tunisians and people in Tunisia opt to migrate illegally to the European Union, with Italy being the most frequently chosen destination. The number of migrants began to increase rapidly after Sayed took power in 2019. There were just under 2,700 migrants in 2019 and more than 18,000 in 2023.

Tunisia is a long-standing partner of Italy in the fight against irregular migration. In 1998, the two countries concluded their first agreement. It provided for the cooperation of border guards in preventing boats with migrants from leaving the Tunisian coast. The Arab Spring outbreak temporarily halted its implementation. Between December 2010 and April 2011, 22,000 Tunisian nationals illegally entered Italy. An exchange of notes between the foreign ministries of the two countries resolved the problem on 6 April 2011. The two countries granted refugee status to migrants who arrived in Italy before the designated date (6 April 2011), and ordered the return of those arriving after that date to Tunisia.

In 2023, Italy, with the support of the European Commission, concluded another agreement with Tunisia, under which the country was to receive €1 billion for the integration of migrants crossing the border illegally. In return, it was to block the departure of ships with migrants from Tunisian ports. However, it soon became apparent that the local services were sending them back to the desert on Libyan territory, leaving them without water or food. President Sayed responded negatively to the EU’s protest. He considered the one billion euros a “handout” and the EU’s response an interference in his country’s sovereignty. They struck another deal in April 2024. The inability to enforce respect for migrants’ rights in Tunisia led to a reduction in Italian support for its development to €210 million. At the same time, human rights organisations claim that the practice of sending migrants to the desert continues.

Conclusions and perspectives

After Libya, Tunisia is the EU’s most important partner on the Central Mediterranean route. However, unlike its eastern neighbour, Tunisia is a stable, centralised state that facilitates negotiations on migration policy cooperation. It also has years of experience in this cooperation. Sayed presents a confrontational attitude toward the EU and is not concerned about respecting the rights of migrants. He perceives any attempt to influence the implementation of the Italian-Tunisian agreements as neo-colonial policy. Therefore, it poses a significant challenge for EU Member States.

Tunisians are Africa’s most educated nation and can be desirable workers in the European market. Due to their liberal moral views, tolerance, and commitment to the idea of a secular state, they integrate relatively easily into the societies of EU countries. For this reason, it is worth considering making the facilitation of Schengen visas for Tunisians conditional on the country’s authorities preventing illegal migration and respecting the rights of migrants.

Maciej Pawłowski’s book “Gateway to Europe. Will North Africa decide the future of the Old Continent” will present more information on migration via Tunisia to the EU. The book will be published by Prześwity Publishing in 2025.