Amina Jabran
What You Need to Know
Tunisia’s recently approved 2026 finance law introduces social measures targeting employment, health, and support for vulnerable groups. While it aims to enhance social justice, concerns arise regarding the government’s capacity to implement these measures effectively amidst economic constraints and rising public debt.
Africa. Political and economic circles in Tunisia consider the 2026 finance law to be a challenge for the government, as it tests its ability to translate and implement the proposed social measures on the ground.
Parliament recently approved the new finance law, which includes a set of social measures affecting several vital sectors, including employment, health, direct support for vulnerable groups, agriculture, and housing.
The bill introduces measures aimed at supporting the employment of higher education graduates in the private sector, especially at the beginning of their professional careers, according to local media reports. Article 13 stipulates that the state will cover employers’ contributions to social security for the wages paid to higher education graduates recruited starting from January 1, 2026. This measure will be implemented through progressive rates over five years: 100% in the first year, followed by 80%, 60%, 40%, and reaching 20% in the fifth year.
Article 14 also provides for expanding the role of the National Employment Fund to finance training and skills development programs for job seekers, including final-year students and trainees in vocational training centers, with the aim of facilitating their transition into the labor market.
The draft law also includes a set of measures that directly affect wages and pensions. Article 15 stipulates wage and salary increases in both the public and private sectors during the years 2026, 2027, and 2028. The increase also applies to retirement pensions, providing relative income stability for these groups in the face of rising prices.
The bill further includes several direct social measures, notably the establishment of a fund to promote the rights and welfare of persons with special needs under Article 32. This fund will be partially financed through a 1% deduction from compensation related to traffic accidents and workplace accidents, in addition to other resources to be determined by implementing regulations.
Since the discussion of its articles within Parliament, the new finance law has sparked widespread debate among Tunisians. Opinions have been divided between those who welcome its focus on the social role of the state and those who question the government’s ability to implement these social measures amid limited resources and the need to curb spending in response to public debt.
The website “Africa Press” monitored the views of politicians and economic experts regarding their assessment and interpretation of the new finance law. While some believe it offers social gains for Tunisians and is the best among previous finance laws, others argue that it is driven by populist calculations and aims to conceal the authorities’ failure to manage the country’s deteriorating economic situation.
Social Gains
Ali Zghdoud, head of the Let the People Triumph parliamentary bloc and a member of the Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee, said in an interview with “Africa Press” that “within the Let the People Triumph bloc, we made great efforts to develop the 2026 finance law and give it a solid social dimension. Through the combined efforts of a large number of our colleagues, we succeeded in passing several articles that provide fairness to broad social groups. We upheld the wealth tax and managed to allocate part of the budget to those suffering from long-term unemployment, in addition to measures affecting farmers, industrialists, and owners of small and medium-sized enterprises. For these reasons, we voted in favor of the 2026 finance law, given the set of social gains at the core of this law, especially when adding the principle of approving wage increases, which we hope will be implemented through a regulatory decree that meets the expectations of the working class in Tunisia.”
He added, “However, all of this does not conceal the weakness of support for investment and wealth creation, despite the increase in the investment budget. This stems from our understanding within the Let the People Triumph bloc that a social state is a developmental state—one that produces wealth and achieves high growth rates, while at the same time providing social services and job opportunities for all its people. All social gains remain at risk if there is no sustainability in high growth rates and accumulation of national wealth.”
He explained that “in its final approved version, we tried as much as possible to ease the burden on citizens through the adopted measures, because ultimately the citizen needs a job. This law is considered the best in decades in terms of employment, whether regarding recruitment, regularization of employment situations, or meeting the expectations of long-term unemployed university graduates. Tens of thousands will benefit directly from these measures, which will support the most important driver of growth—consumption. Measures were also enacted in favor of several sectors that will help businesses emerge from the crisis.”
He concluded by saying, “Ultimately, the current finance law is better than its predecessors. However, the continued heavy reliance on taxation and borrowing is due to the structural crisis of the Tunisian economy, which cannot be addressed through a finance law alone, but rather through a strategic vision and an integrated program that reorders economic priorities, gives precedence to strategic sectors with strong productive and employment capacity, and addresses the major challenges facing the Tunisian economy, namely public debt, the crisis of social security funds, the energy deficit, and public enterprises.”
From the perspective of economic experts, the new finance law represents a real challenge for the government, given the enormous economic pressure it faces due to its reliance on domestic borrowing to cover the deficit. This leads to the depletion of available resources and may shift the banking sector’s focus away from financing the real economy toward covering the budget deficit.
Economist Moez Haddidan stated in an interview with “Africa Press” that “the 2026 finance bill could be an opportunity to build a more socially just state if it is properly implemented. In that case, it would provide support for vulnerable groups, better social services, tax fairness, regional development, and job creation.”
However, he cautioned that “the real danger lies in it becoming merely a source of increased taxation—and thus a ‘reduction of subsidies’ or ‘economic pressure’ on middle- or low-income citizens—especially if it is not accompanied by structural reforms and a high level of transparency in its implementation.”
Meanwhile, economist Ridha Chkandali said in an interview with “Africa Press” that “the 2026 finance law has reduced the social role of the Tunisian state to three key points.”
He explained: “First, it focused on recruiting unemployed individuals into the public sector, particularly the civil service, and many articles fall within this framework. Second, the law summarizes the concept of the social state through wage increases in both the public and private sectors, as well as increases in retirement pensions and support for social security systems, including the provision of a car for each family.”
He believes that “the problem with this law is that wage increases are linked to the size of the wage bill. A budget of only 900 million dinars has been allocated for this purpose, intended to cover the salaries of more than 51,000 new recruits. This means that the amount allocated in the budget is weak due to financial balance constraints.”
Regarding the third point related to supporting social security systems through multiple deductions, he argues that “citizens will ultimately bear the cost, at the expense of Tunisians’ pockets. Therefore, this concept of the social role is not the correct one. The correct concept lies in the state’s ability to improve the quality of social services such as health, education, and transportation. This is absent from the new law, as it does not present a clear program to improve the quality of social services that would enable citizens to enhance their purchasing power.”
Populist Calculations
Political circles point to the lack of consensus over this law between the first and second chambers of Parliament, as some voices opposed it on the grounds that its social measures are merely populist slogans aimed at absorbing public anger and preserving the authority’s popularity, amid fears of losing supporters due to poor management of the economic situation.
Alaa Zaghouani, a member of the Council of Regions and Districts, revealed in an interview with “Africa Press” that “what happened regarding the 2026 finance bill goes beyond the mere absence of consensus between the two chambers, amounting instead to a clear violation of the philosophy upon which the Organic Budget Law is based.”
He continued: “This amended version, imposed through the dominance of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, is in practical contradiction with the 2026–2030 Development Plan, which constitutes the mandatory reference for public management and upon which the National Council of Regions and Districts relies when programming projects. Neither this council nor the executive authority can implement articles that were inserted without feasibility studies, without funding, and without any alignment with national planning mechanisms.”
“Settlement” articles and short-term gains were introduced under the pressure of populist calculations and electoral loyalties, in direct violation of the spirit of the Organic Budget Law, which prohibits the use of public finances to serve temporary interests. These are provisions that are neither funded nor implementable and have no real impact other than generating political sympathy.
He commented: “Let everyone be aware: the articles specifically concerning higher education graduates are nothing more than literary phrases, drafted merely to save face. There are no mechanisms, no funding, no timetable, and no actionable commitments. Just a nice text… without backing, without impact, and without a future. The result? A finance bill that is not applicable in reality, inconsistent with the development plan, and rejected by the government, the second chamber, experts, and organizations. Yet it is being pushed through by force. However, the full political, moral, and economic responsibility will remain… and the state will be held accountable by history and by the Fund.”
For his part, Taher Ben Mansour, a member of Parliament, stated in an interview with “Africa Press” that he refused to vote for the finance law because he believes it “falls below the minimum expectations of the Tunisian people in all areas, particularly on the social front, which was limited to scattered measures here and there and did not rise to the level of a genuine social policy outlining clear objectives for social advancement and development. The government’s measures are merely temporary palliatives that chase problems rather than offering real solutions.”
While the law bets on employing long-term unemployed individuals, several MPs argue that the budget allocated for their recruitment remains weak and has not been definitively determined, which increases financial pressures and adds to the uncertainty surrounding the country’s economic outlook.
Boubaker Ben Yahia, a member of Parliament, explained in a statement to “Africa Press”: “The slogan of the state’s social role has been adopted, and the executive authority has considered that settling several employment situations—such as those of public works laborers, schoolteachers, and substitute teachers—falls within the state’s social role. This comes in addition to wage increases in the civil service and in the public and private sectors, without specifying the rate of increase and without going through social negotiations as was previously the case. This has made the amount allocated for these increases unknown and undefined. In other words, we are debating and approving a finance law while a very important piece of information is missing: the actual value of the wage increase.”
He stressed that “the articles of the finance law do not provide any real support for investment that could stimulate the economy, even though investment is the main engine of wealth creation and the generation of additional resources for the state budget.”
He also pointed out that “financing community-based enterprises that are already struggling at the formation stage, given the way they are established and profits distributed, will have very limited effectiveness and little job-creation capacity. This is compounded by weak financing for small and medium-sized enterprises, which does not meet the aspirations of promoters and entrepreneurs in the economic sector to absorb as much labor as possible.”
According to Ben Yahia, “the 2026 finance law is no different from its predecessors; it is merely an accounting document seeking fiscal balances in the absence of clear economic and social visions. The slogan of self-reliance has turned into the entrenchment of a dangerous situation for the national economy, which is unable to achieve respectable growth rates.”
He added: “The slogan of the state’s social role does not mean social action alone; it also means fairness in rights and duties through major reforms affecting the state’s vital sectors, as well as control and management of our natural and human resources. Therefore, the current situation and the absence of a genuine reform vision cannot produce anything different from what already exists.”
Tunisian opposition circles criticize the adoption of an exclusionary policy and a unilateral approach to addressing the country’s challenges, as well as the failure to involve diverse viewpoints and experts in discussions over the finance law. They stress the need to find sustainable solutions to stabilize public finances, preserve essential public services, develop the development model, and formulate genuine reforms.
Riyadh Chaaibi, a senior figure in the Ennahdha Movement, stated in an interview with “Africa Press” that “the problem is that the finance law has been pulled apart by populist bidding to the point that it has lost its economic and developmental dimensions, as well as its internal balances. At times, under the reckless influence of opportunistic lobbies, it has even turned into an opportunity to achieve narrow personal and factional gains, such as increasing the special retirement rate for members of both councils. No room was left for a rational and responsible political debate around this law due to the negative climate overshadowing the country. Therefore, we expect nothing but a further deepening of the economic and social crisis facing Tunisians.”
Analysts conclude that the new finance law seeks to emphasize the social role of the state at the expense of investment and development—choices they view as ill-considered and likely to further aggravate the economic crisis rather than ease it and improve Tunisians’ living conditions.
For his part, political analyst Khaled Krouna expressed his regret in a statement to “Africa Press” that “the 2026 finance law does not fundamentally differ from its predecessors, because its drafters continue to think with a purely accounting mindset—one that draws up comparison tables between expected funding and mandatory expenditures. This technical outlook does not lay the groundwork for a serious shift toward a social state (aside from a few limited measures), as the governing philosophy has failed to address rural issues by dismantling fragile economic structures, nor has it outlined a plan to absorb marginalized areas and integrate them. The main forces benefiting from the persistence of the status quo remain influential, with their primary instrument being their dominance over the banking cartel, which intensifies the tax burden on the general population—evidenced by the astonishing rejection by Parliament of the bill on taxing large fortunes that had been submitted by the government.”
He concluded by saying that “this budget does not represent a real break with a development model that has run out of steam. It continues the same approach that places the burden of the economic crisis on low- and middle-income groups, a crisis that continues to worsen amid the succession of global crises. This will not allow the achievement of growth rates capable of generating an economic recovery. On the contrary, some articles represent a continuation of a practice whereby the law is bent to serve individuals who are part of an oligarchy that suffocates the economy and diverts its benefits into their own pockets.”
Tunisia’s economic landscape has been shaped by various challenges, including high unemployment rates and inflation. The government’s efforts to address these issues have often been met with skepticism, particularly regarding the effectiveness of proposed reforms. The 2026 finance law reflects ongoing attempts to balance social needs with fiscal realities, highlighting the complexities of governance in a transitioning economy.
