Emigration from the Tunisian coast signals the absence of a community project for migratory flows

Migration routes to Europe, which originate from the southern Mediterranean, have seen a progressive shift of the departure bases from Libya to Tunisia. The reasons for this variation are various and are attributable to a greater repression by Libyans on migrants who try to leave their shores, an unpreparedness of the Tunisian authorities to face this new phenomenon that concerns them and, finally, the specifically Tunisian emigration to Italy. The economic situation in Tunisia due to the pandemic is the real emergency to which these latest developments are connected. The decline in activity in the textile sector recorded a percentage which decreased by 17%, while in tourism, which represents one of the main items of income, the contraction was 30%; this led to a significant drop in gross domestic product and an exponential increase in unemployment. Beyond the fact that the decrease in the economy is affecting the whole planet, the need for forms of cooperation with the states of the southern shore of the Mediterranean should be at the heart of a Union project, which, however, does not exist, while the initiative is left to the individual states closest to emergency situations. Yet the investment would give both economic returns, both in terms of security and in terms of politics; in fact, regulation of migratory traffic, as well as offering guarantees on the safety of people, could take away arguments from populist and anti-European formations. These reflections are functional to the phenomenon of emigration for economic reasons, which concerns Tunisia, but it should also be extended to other African countries, just as a preventive strategy. Different is the case of those who flee from wars and famines and end up prey to economic traffickers, who operate from the Libyan coast. The attitude of Western governments, especially the Italian ones, has been directed to the delegation of control of the phenomenon to the Libyan government, which has never guaranteed respect for human rights and, indeed, has clearly violated it also thanks to weapons supplied by the Italy. Awareness of the use of violence to contain the migratory phenomenon puts Italian governments, both the current and the previous one, in a position to at least tolerate Libyan methods, which cannot be shared. On the other hand, this reason, that of Libyan violence, may be one of the causes of the shift of the bases of departure towards the coasts of Tunisia, where the state is not prepared to face the phenomenon. The Italian government has threatened to remove the contributions, there is talk of over six million euros to Tunisia, but it is once again about contingent measures, such as the granting of the contribution, which are divorced from a more complex plan, broad and long-term, for which the European Union is needed as the main protagonist, both from a financial and a political point of view. The Tunisian case also demonstrates that repression alone and as the only method of contrasting illegal immigration is not enough, because the solutions that the human tide can find are always different and always involve new subjects, who, perhaps before were out of context. . This is even more true because the numbers of the migratory phenomenon remain more or less on the same values, whether the departure is from the Libyan coast or from the Tunisian coast. So the room for maneuver to start a containment project based on aid could start from certain data and, perhaps, with investments lower than those given to Turkey to contain the Balkan route, but that would not be an emergency solution but a collaborative project where even the states of departure could use aid for economic development and not for weapons, passed as an instrument of control, they are also, of course, but also a functional military instrument for the current government.