In the context of the partnership agreement signed between Tunisia and the European Union in 1995, talks will begin in the year 2000 on the liberalisation of their agricultural trade. Tunisia’s political attachment to Europe will give the country the opportunity to diversify agricultural policy. Hitherto based on achieving self sufficiency in food, this policy has resulted in poor resource allocation. The goal now is to find the least costly means of reforming Tunisian agricultural policy, particularly for rural households, while seeking the extent to which Europe could help in the transition towards a more dynamic agricultural sector.

With the assistance of a dynamic general equilibrium model, this technical paper examines a number of scenarios for Tunisian agriculture towards 2010. It finds that in the absence of EU concessions, which could take the form of the removal of tariff quotas, it would not be in Tunisia’s interest to reduce support for agriculture and lower its own ...