French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni today called for support for Tunisia, which is facing a serious economic crisis, in order to limit the “migration pressure» from this country to Europe.

“In Tunisia, the very high political tension, the economic and social crisis that is raging, in the absence of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, are very worrying“, said the French president at the press conference he gave after the European Council meeting in Brussels.

This fact “leads to major destabilization of the country and the region and increased migratory pressure for Italy and the EU“, he continued, urging countries to “act together” at the European level to help Tunisia.

“We need, in the short term, to stop the migration flows from Tunisia that add to this pressure“, Macron insisted, clarifying that he discussed this issue with the Italian Prime Minister in their bilateral contacts.

“If we do not address these problems satisfactorily, there is a risk of an unprecedented wave of migration“, warned Meloni for her part, who also discussed the matter with the European Finance Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, who will go to Tunisia one of the next days. He added that the countries should work at the diplomatic level to convince the two sides, the Tunisian government and the IMF, to conclude an agreement for the economic stabilization of the region.

Tunisia has been negotiating a loan of about $2 billion from the IMF for several months but talks appear to have stalled after the agreement in principle announced in mid-October.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, assessed on Monday that the situation in Tunisia is “very dangerous” and even spoke of a risk of “collapse” of the state that would lead to “migratory flows to the EU and instability in the Middle East and North Africa region».

This analysis, however, was rejected by Tunis as “disproportionate».