The European Union and Tunisia have signed a memorandum of understanding on migration and economic matters this Sunday. The second time was the charm. A European delegation was already at the Palacio de Cartago on June 11 and this Sunday, they have returned to unblock the negotiation. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the acting Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, returned to Tunisia to finally sign an agreement with the President, Kais Saied.
“It has been agreed that Tunisia will better protect its borders and tackle human trafficking, in exchange for EU investments. This money is intended to improve the Tunisian economy,” a spokesman for Prime Minister Rutte was quoted as saying by Efe. In the press conference from Tunisia, no details were given by the three European officials.
Negotiations had been blocked after Saied refused to become a “gendarme of Europe’s borders” at the end of June. The pact offered in June to the North African country contemplated an aid package of more than one million euros from the European Union in exchange for cutting off the migratory flow from its shores. The details of the signing this Sunday, at the close of this edition, have not been disclosed.
The Tunisian coasts have become a hotbed of clandestine emigration to the north in recent months, especially to Italy, with more than 70,000 people so far in 2023. In these seven months the upturn is significant if it is compare the figures for 2021, with 24,624 arrivals, and for 2022, with 31,920. According to figures cited by Corriere della Sera, in July of this year alone, landings flowed at a rate of between 600 and 1,000 per day.
Much has to do with this the ‘crusade’ against sub-Saharan immigrants that the populist Saied has undertaken. In February he broke through with a racist speech in which he accused these people of all the ills of the country. African immigrants, he said, “are part of a criminal conspiracy born at the dawn of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia and there are parties that have received large sums of money since 2011 to settle migrants in Tunisia” in order to dilute , according to him, the “Arab-Muslim” character of Tunisia.
Following these statements there has been a wave of hatred against sub-Saharan migrants, including clashes with locals. In an incident that occurred on July 3, a Tunisian was killed. This unleashed the ‘immigrant hunt’. Tunisian and international human rights organizations have denounced in recent days the expulsion of hundreds of people towards the borders with Algeria and Libya, desert and inhospitable areas, with temperatures of more than 40 degrees, and also physical attacks, harassment and robberies . The bodies of two migrants were discovered in the Hazua desert this week.
The Tunisian Red Crescent itself has confirmed this week the expulsion of 600 migrants, without food or water, towards the border perimeter of Ben Guerdane, which borders Libya and which in recent years has become an area monitored by the army for stop the flows of contraband of all kinds and control the jihadist groups that began to proliferate in the area in the heat of the Libyan chaos. The organization has welcomed them in schools.
While the so-called “Europe team” traveled to Tunisia and met with President Saied this Sunday, 1,400 people arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is located a few hours by boat from the Tunisian coast. For the purposes of migration control, rescue and return of migrants and asylum seekers and the fight against human trafficking, the European Commission has offered 105 million euros to Tunisia.
During their visit on June 11, the European officials proposed a partnership agreement with five financing axes, by sector: digitization, energy, migration, human exchange and development. This is also intended to alleviate the serious economic crisis that the country is going through, allocating 900 million euros in addition to 150 million in budget support. However, the ‘sine qua non’ condition for accessing these funds is the granting of a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which Tunisia is negotiating. And this ligature was the main objection that President Saied had to agree with the EU.
Saied, who this July 25 will celebrate two years of governing with full powers after suspending Parliament and sacking the prime minister, has also rejected the IMF conditions. Since 2021, the country has experienced a serious setback in democracy and in terms of civil rights and liberties.
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