Tunisia Govt, UGTT Union Sign Deal on Economic Reforms

Tunisia's Prime Minister Hichem Mehcichi. (AFP file photo)
Tunisia's Prime Minister Hichem Mehcichi. (AFP file photo)
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Tunisia Govt, UGTT Union Sign Deal on Economic Reforms

Tunisia's Prime Minister Hichem Mehcichi. (AFP file photo)
Tunisia's Prime Minister Hichem Mehcichi. (AFP file photo)

Tunisia's government and the powerful UGTT labor union signed an economic reform package on Wednesday that tackles subsidies, taxes and state firms, Prime Minister Hichem Mehcichi said.

The deal, which comes as Tunisia grapples with unprecedented financial problems, could open the way for an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

"It is a historic agreement on important battles in our country," Mechichi said.

The agreement includes a plan to start reforms for seven state companies, including Tunisair and the STEG Electricity Company.

Details of the reforms plan will be unveiled later.

The IMF urged Tunisia to cut its wage bill and limit energy subsidies to reduce a fiscal deficit, putting more pressure on the government amid a severe financial and political crisis.

"A very good step that shows that we are the ones who choose our reforms and agree on them without anyone dictating them to Tunisia," Finance Minister Ali Kooli told Reuters.

Kooli said that a Tunisian delegation would start discussions with the IMF over a financing program in two weeks, adding that reaching a deal with IMF would improve Tunisia's credibility and allow it to mobilize foreign loans.

Tunisia’s 2021 budget forecasts borrowing needs of $7.2 billion, including about $5 billion in foreign loans. It puts debt repayments due this year at 16 billion dinars ($5.75 billion), up from 11 billion dinars in 2020.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.