(Reuters) – Tunisia’s President Kais Saied told the International Monetary Fund’s managing director that the fund’s conditions to provide financial support to the North African country risks sparking civil unrest, the Tunisian presidency said on Friday.
“The President of the Republic made it clear that the International Monetary Fund’s conditions for providing financial support to Tunisia are unacceptable because it would affect civil peace,” the statement read.
Saied’s remarks came during a meeting with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Paris on the sidelines of a finance summit on Thursday night, the Tunisian presidency said.
Tunisia’s bailout talks with the IMF have looked stalled for months, and there is little sign Saied is willing to agree to the steps needed to reach a deal and help the country avoid a financial crisis.
Without a loan, Tunisia faces a full-blown balance of payments crisis. Most debt is internal but there are foreign loan repayments due later this year, and credit ratings agencies have said Tunisia may default.
Saied reiterated that any required cuts to subsidies, mostly on energy and food, could have detrimental effects on the country, recalling deadly riots that hit Tunisia in 1983 after the government raised the price of bread.
“The President of the Republic stressed that he would not accept a single drop of blood being shed,” the presidency statement said, adding that Georgieva had welcomed an invitation from Saied to visit Tunisia at a yet-to-be-determined date.
(Reporting by Muhammad Al Gebaly; Writing by Hatem Maher; Editing by Chris Reese and Lincoln Feast)
