Labour Migration and Policy Negotiations: the 1976Tunisia-EEC Cooperation Agreement and its Impact

The article analyses the social dimension of cooperation, with particularattention to labour mobility, between Tunisia and the EuropeanEconomic Community within the framework of the 1976 cooperationagreement, which emerged as part of the Global Mediterranean Policy.The aim of the article is to offer a perspective from a Global South coun-try, moving beyond the Eurocentric narrative of North–South migration,and to show how Tunisia demonstrated its own capacity for agency,even while operating within an increasingly restrictive internationalcontext. Within this broader strategy of North–South cooperation,Tunisia sought to expand the scope of its dialogue with the EuropeanCommunity. Tunis’s objective was not only to alleviate domestic socialtensions and enhance human capital, but also to legitimise a broaderdemand for European involvement in the country’s development. Thetransfer of skills, regulation of migration flows, social protection forworkers and shared development became the central pillars of theTunisian proposal. In this way, the Tunisian government sought to seizethe political momentum generated by the Global Mediterranean Policyto promote an alternative model of cooperation that reflected its ownaspirations.