Tunisia's 2027 budget: nobody disputes the figures, only what they mean
A ministerial council took up the draft 2027 economic budget on 19 August, on figures showing growth of 2.4 percent in the first half of 2026 and unemployment down to 14.9 percent. Nobody quoted here says those figures are wrong. They disagree about whether the figures describe a country that is recovering.
Where they agree
Abdelhafidh and Selmi both want investment to rise: the minister lists it among his priorities, the union asks for 8 billion dinars of state credits. Selmi and Khalladi both want more of the tax burden carried by wealth, he by moving the income tax from seven brackets to nine, she by taxing wealth and widening the base. Neither the minister nor the head of government answers either proposal.
Where they split
Abdelhafidh and Bellagha read the same economy and reach opposite verdicts: the minister calls 2.4 percent resilience, while Bellagha sets the 1.9 percent assumed for 2027 against inflation climbing three times faster and calls that impoverishment. Selmi accepts the growth rate and attacks what the budget does with it, which is the one argument the minister's priorities do not answer. Khalladi's measure is neither: she works from a debt ratio the council's own account never mentions.
What nobody is saying
The published account of the council gives no growth rate for 2027 and no debt figure at all. The only 2027 rate in circulation is the 1.9 percent Kapitalis says was announced for the finance bill, and the 2.4 percent the government leads with is a half-year outturn for 2026, so the two never meet. Nobody on this page says which rate the budget is actually built on.
The minister put the half-year figures to the council: growth of 2.4 percent, and unemployment at 14.9 percent against 15.3 percent a year earlier. The official account calls inflation contained and foreign currency reserves satisfactory, and quotes him praising the economy's resilience. His priorities for 2027 are the business climate, investment, food and water sovereignty, the energy and digital transitions, and artificial intelligence.
She chaired the council and told the ministries to finish the draft faster. Her test for a project is practical: how ready it is, whether the financing exists, and what economic and social effect it would have. The priorities the budget is meant to serve come from the 2026 to 2030 development plan.
In a letter of proposals to the finance minister, he calls the head of government's note on preparing the 2027 budget an austerity line that will damage public services. He objects to its limit on promotions and its silence on precarious work and low incomes. He wants the tax-free income band raised from 5,000 to 7,000 dinars, the brackets taken from seven to nine, and public investment credits raised to 8 billion dinars, 10 percent of the budget.
In a March 2026 note for the Tunisian economists' association, she puts public debt at 85 percent of GDP and calls 90 percent the point where social stability and sovereignty are at risk. Her plan caps the public wage bill, turns energy subsidies into cash transfers to the neediest families, and widens the tax base through action on evasion, the informal economy and a tax on wealth. No reform will hold, she warns, without political agreement and full transparency.
He works from the rate the 2027 budget is built on rather than last year's outturn: 1.9 percent growth against inflation expected at around 5 percent, which leaves households poorer than before. Youth unemployment above 38 percent does not appear in the figure being quoted at all. His second objection is that a budget written in technical vocabulary cannot be contested by the people it falls on.
”Un pays qui produit un peu plus de richesse, pendant que les prix montent trois fois plus vite, ne s'enrichit pas”A country that produces a little more wealth while prices rise three times faster is not getting richer