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Brussels and Tunis have locked horns over the financing of a deal aimed at curbing irregular migration into Europe, highlighting the pitfalls of the EU relying on autocratic regimes in its immigration policy.
In unusually harsh comments, EU neighbourhood commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said Tunisia was “free to cancel” its financial request and “wire back the money” it had already received. The commissioner wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that an EU-Tunisia migration deal “should continue once [Tunis] returns to the spirit of our . . . strategic partnership based on mutual respect”.
His remarks came after Tunisia’s president Kais Saied earlier this week accused the EU of not following through on its July agreement to pay Tunis more than €250mn in a bid to reduce a recent spike in Mediterranean Sea crossings from the north African country.
Saied said he rejected a tranche of financial aid announced last month, a claim dismissed by Brussels, which said it had already wired €60mn to Tunis.
“[Saied] is arm wrestling with the Europeans because he wants to get financial assistance without conditions,” said Hamza Meddeb, fellow at Carnegie Middle East Center, a think-tank. “That’s why 6,000 migrants arrived in Lampedusa in one day last month; it is not a coincidence.”
Negotiations on an additional €900mn in EU budget support for Tunis have not been concluded, as Saied has refused to agree to the terms of an IMF reform package tied to that money. Italy has been pushing to pay out the additional money without the conditions set by the IMF, but other member states have opposed this.
“There is a big question mark whether the country will be able to sustain itself for the following months or even weeks,” said Meddeb. The Tunisian president was “doubling down on the pressure” in order to secure that extra financing, he said.
The spat with Saied has added to tensions within the EU over the terms of the agreement and human rights concerns in the north African nation. Unusually high numbers of arrivals from Tunisia to Italy have exposed the limitations of the deal championed by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, EU council president Charles Michel and several member states have also criticised the commission for negotiating without sufficient consultation.
“The memorandum with Tunisia had not been discussed or agreed within the EU council before its signature. This should, however, be the normal procedure,” Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jean Asselborn said.
Humanitarian organisations and some member states have raised concerns about the lack of human rights guarantees in the deal, as the Tunisian authorities have been accused of dumping migrants in the desert on the border with Libya.
“I regret that the memorandum of understanding does not include stronger messages on human rights, rule of law and democratic principles,” Asselborn said.
Cyprus’ interior minister Constantinos Ioannou told the Financial Times that the agreement with Tunisia needed time to take effect and suggested that it was already having an impact on migratory flows.
“If that plan wasn’t implemented, maybe the flows from Tunisia would have been double instead of [what they are] now,” Ioannou said.
Several EU diplomats and officials have conceded that Tunisia is not an easy partner, but see no alternative to the agreement. “It might not work. But we have no option but to make deals,” a senior EU diplomat said.
Despite the controversies surrounding the Tunisia deal, member states continue to cast it as a model for similar agreements with other nations in northern Africa to rein in migration — notably Egypt and Morocco.
“We hope that this time the council will be involved,” a senior EU diplomat said.
However, analysts and activists have pointed out the limits of sealing agreements with countries who have weak state institutions, while turning a blind eye on their internal issues.
Tunisia does not have a functioning visa or asylum system that could register the scores of people from other African countries coming there before they try and reach Europe.
“We are trying to outsource a very complex problem that we as Europeans are even struggling to manage ourselves, to countries that are actually much poorer . . . and that have state bureaucracies and security forces that are obviously underresourced,” said Riccardo Fabiani, north Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Source: Economy - ft.com
