€100 million for Tunisian border management, EU Commission states

The European Commission will invest €100 million in anti-smuggling activities, border management, search and rescue operation, and migrant returns to Tunisia as part of a €1 billion investment plan.

The package, announced by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday (11 June) during a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, amounts to an economic lifeline for Tunisian President Kais Saied, whose government is facing severe economic and political difficulties.

Having agreed to a $1.9 billion loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last October, Saied has since backtracked on accepting the conditions laid down, including reforms to public companies and scrapping fuel subsidies, leaving Tunisia facing an imminent balance of payments crisis.

The increasing number of migrants reaching Europe via illegal smuggling networks in Tunisia has also put the North African country at the centre of international attention.

Asked whether the EU proposal will include the return of non-Tunisian citizens to the country, the EU executive stated on Monday that precise details on how the funds will be spent would be published in an EU-Tunisia ‘memorandum of understanding’ in late June.

Von der Leyen also announced plans to organise an EU-Tunisia cooperation council by the end of the year.

Similarity with the EU-Turkey deal

The deal to support Tunisia’s border management is similar to the EU’s pact struck in March 2016 with Turkey, when Brussels agreed to pay €6 billion to prevent people fleeing the civil war in Syria from reaching the EU.

The deal greatly boosted the geopolitical position of Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and remains in place despite repeated criticism of human rights abuses in Turkey.

Tunisia’s President Saied, who has governed by decree since dismissing his government and parliament in July 2021, has faced similar criticism. In recent months, a series of opposition politicians and civil society leaders have been arrested and jailed on anti-terrorism charges.

In February, Saied was accused of “racialised hate speech” by the African Union after alleging that there was a plot to settle migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia, adding that “we will not permit the demographic composition (of Tunisia) to be changed.”

Democracy campaigners frustrated as EU shies away from criticising Tunisia's Saied

EU leaders have again shied away from public criticism of Tunisia’s President Kais Saied as the North African country continues to slide towards autocracy ahead of controversial parliamentary elections in December.

However, the deal with the EU means that his government will become an integral part of the EU’s external strategy to contain migrants and manage its borders.

EU migration pact

EU home affairs ministers agreed on a position on the so-called EU migration pact last Thursday (8 June), a series of laws that would create an EU regulatory framework for welcoming and receiving migrants and asylum seekers.

The most delicate proposal is related to the distribution of migrants across the EU. Ministers agreed to a system of mandatory ‘solidarity’ in which countries that do not accept migrants have to pay €20,000 for each migrant that they say they cannot host.

The payments will go into a common EU fund – managed by the EU Commission – to finance projects aimed at addressing the root causes of migration, said EU officials.

EU ministers reach 'historic' deal on migrant relocation

EU home affairs ministers reached a migration deal described as ‘historic’ by officials that would see EU states pay €20,000 for each migrant that they refuse to host.

Ministers are now seeking to finalise an agreement with the European Parliament before the end of the legislative mandate next spring.

[Edited by Benjamin Fox/Alice Taylor]