Undesirable

Free Trade

As the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) announced, the German government will aid Tunisia in its preparations for free trade. ¹⁾By 2010 Brussels intends to establish a free trade zone to include the nations of the southern and eastern Mediterranean, in order to guarantee the smooth exchange of goods and services. The first of such free trade agreements was finalized with Tunisia July 17, 1995, and the complete implementation will be carried out in the next few years. German financing is supposed to insure that the Tunisian economy arrives at the necessary standards ontime. The approx. 57 million Euro, that the German government has promised Tunis for the years 2005 and 2006, have also a second focus: ecological projects. In this domain, the German economy is recognized as the world leader.

Division of Labor

The free trade between the EU and Tunisia is beneficial to those German enterprises, exploiting the prevailing low-wage levels in the country for their sites of high-profit production. "This sort of division of labor" is practiced by German firms "in Africa solely in the Mediterranean coastal states of Morocco and Tunisia (mainly in the clothing branch)" as one learned, at the end of the 1990s, from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). ²⁾As the Foreign Ministry (AA) announces, "pre-finished textiles" are among the "most important German export article to Tunisia." ³⁾Interposed are only the finishing touches applied by Tunisian labor for a starvation wage. In all, approx. 275 enterprises - all branches included - with German investment capital participation are settled in Tunisia. These are "for the most part export oriented" (AA) and "benefit from tax exemption."

Manpower

The low-cost production in Tunisia follows on the heels of the use of cheaper Tunisian migrant manpower in Germany, which began as a result of the 1965 signing of the "Recruitment Agreement" between Bonn and Tunis. Thousands of Tunisians emigrated from their North African nation to the Federal Republic of Germany, and - often under deplorable working conditions - quenched the lack of manpower in German enterprises. Wholesale recruiters were the major industrial enterprises, e.g. Siemens. Today about 42 000 Tunisian citizens are living in Germany. But since the German economy began having a growing proportion of its low-wage production be carried out abroad and mainly showing interest in the immigration of highly qualified personal, German politics has been oriented toward a strict monitoring of migration. As the BMZ declares, the Association Accord between the EU and Tunisia, which took effect in December 1997, "sets the legal framework for discussing questions of migration." ⁴⁾

Order

According to the BMZ, Tunisia is "one of the main departure states for the illegal immigration from Africa" which can be seen by the "enormous effort" expended by the government of that country in the struggle against undesirable migrants into the EU. ⁵⁾The Interior Minister in Berlin and his Tunisian counterpart signed a bilateral accord, on April 8, 2003, targeting - among other things - the "criminal smuggle of human beings." ⁶⁾"We have a problem with the surveillance of the borders of our territory," explained the Tunisian Defense Minister Oct. 5, 2004, in Berlin, at the occasion of his country's purchase of six of the German Navy's "Albatros" - fast patrol boats. ⁷⁾Tunisia paid the 33 million Euros for the boats. The Tunisian government is "cooperative" and agrees "with the EU, that the illegal migration has to be fought" is the view of the colleagues in the BMZ Ministry. ⁸⁾

Camps

Tunisia is one of the five countries (Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania), in which the EU Minister of the Interior would like to install "pilot projects" for so-called transit centers. ⁹⁾Tunisia last year had already 13 deportation incarceration facilities, 11 of which are kept secret from the public. It has been reported that it is common practice to transport the deportee-prisoner into the Tunisian-Algerian desert region and set him out. The plans for camps, emanating from Berlin, which will be concretized in Libya, ¹⁰⁾spread the imprisonment, à la Tunis, to quasi all of the countries of North Africa and are the prerequisites for the so-called free trade. According to this concept, it is desired that all borders will become permeable for commodity transfer. Undesirable, on the other hand, is that the producers of these commodities and the owners of African resources should be allowed to participate in the consumption of their products inside the European export nations.

1) Deutschland unterstützt Tunesien bei Umweltschutz und Wirtschaftsförderung; Pressemitteilung des Bundesministeriums für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung 01.07.2005
2) Die industriellen Absatzerfolge afrikanischer Länder auf dem deutschen Markt und in der übrigen EU; DIW Berlin Wochenbericht 12/1997
3) Beziehungen zwischen Tunesien und Deutschland; Länder- und Reiseinformationen des Auswärtigen Amts
4), 5) Migration in und aus Afrika; BMZ-Spezial Nr. 118, September 2004
6) Deutschland und Tunesien vereinbaren noch engere Zusammenarbeit bei der Bekämpfung der Organisierten Kriminalität; Pressemitteilung des Bundesinnenministeriums 08.04.2003
7) "Albatrosse" für Tunesien; Pressemitteilung des Bundesverteidigungsministeriums 05.10.2004
8) Migration in und aus Afrika; BMZ-Spezial Nr. 118, September 2004
9) Schily erhält EU-Zuspruch für Auffangzentren; Pressemitteilung des Bundesinnenministeriums 01.10.2004
10) see also The Libyan Project