EPP’s Weber uses Tunisia trip to push revamp of EU’s South Med policy

European People’s Party (EPP) leader Manfred Weber wants the EU to rethink its approach to the South Mediterranean region, after making a two-day visit to Tunisia, with whom the bloc has agreed a new cash-for-migrant-control deal.

The visit by the centre-right leader included a 90-minute meeting with Tunisian President Kais Saied as well as meetings with the foreign and interior ministers, the President of Parliament and civil society leaders.

A senior EPP official told EURACTIV that the trip was a personal initiative by Weber and that he was not accompanied by other EPP MEPs. Weber believes that the EU‘s neighbourhood policy in the South Mediterranean and North Africa has achieved little and needs an overhaul, EURACTIV understands.

“That means building political and personal relationships and sometimes having uncomfortable discussions,” the EPP official said.

Pre-election positioning

The centre-right party is also seeking to position itself as being best placed to address irregular migration to Europe.

“We need respectful engagement and we need to be conscious of how few friends the EU has in the South Mediterranean region,” the EPP official added. “We need to develop these partnerships.”

During his meeting with Saied, the EPP leader urged the Tunisian President to move further on economic reforms to encourage European investors and insisted on respecting the memorandum of understanding agreed with the EU in mid-July.

The trip comes as the EPP starts to set out its stall ahead of next June’s European elections, where migration is set to be one of the main policy issues on the campaign trail.

“European citizens are concerned about migration and we want to differentiate ourselves from the far-right’s approach to this. We want to solve these issues so that people can see that states are dealing with irregular migration responsibly,” the EPP official said.

Led by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Dutch and Italian premiers Mark Rutte and Giorgia Meloni, EU leaders brokered a deal with Saied in June and July that will see Tunisia step up its efforts to control and stem migration flows across the Mediterranean Sea. In exchange, the Commission will provide €785 million to the North African country this year to support its economy and projects for underwater fibre-optic and electricity cables between the EU and North Africa.

The EU executive, with the support of national governments, is keen for the Tunisia pact to be a model for similar arrangements with Egypt and other North African states.

In late July, a letter to von der Leyen, signed by a cross-party group of MEPs including several EPP deputies, complained that the EU-Tunisia deal “fails to address core human rights concerns observed in Tunisia”.

MEPs slam EU over 'grave' human rights abuses following Tunisia migrant deal

EU lawmakers have accused the European Commission of ignoring ‘grave violations’ of human rights in its ‘cash for migrant control’ agreement with Tunisia in a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen published on Thursday (27 July).

They also asked what measures the Commission will take to ensure funding does not benefit institutions involved in human rights violations, and why the memorandum of understanding did not include demands for a comprehensive national dialogue or the release of political prisoners.

However, Parliament officials say that there is a cross-party majority in favour of the agreement with Tunisia.

“Eliminating the causes [of irregular migration] rather than addressing the results is more important,” President Saied told Weber during their meeting at the Carthage Presidential Palace, adding that the EU and Tunisia need to work together to “confront criminal networks that traffic in human beings in the north and south of the Mediterranean”.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]