Safe passage instead of shady migration deals 

CCME expresses concern on EU-Tunisia agreement, contradicts EU commission president

On 16th July 2023, the European Commission and Tunisia signed a “strategic partnership” agreement, aiming among other issues at stopping migrants and refugees from arriving in Europe. 

During the morning of 13th September this agreement was praised by EU Commission President in her State of the Union speech as mutually beneficial.1 Only hours later an official delegation of the European Parliament wishing to explore the situation in Tunisia was denied entry into the country by Tunisian authorities.

The agreement binds the EU to provide Tunisia with financial support that amounts to €785 million, out of which a total of €105 million is assigned to migration management: fighting against “irregular migration”, providing financial and technical support to “further improve the management of Tunisian borders” in addition to supporting “the return of irregular migrants in Tunisia to their countries of origin”. 

(source: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_3887) . Further details are so far unknown and it is questionable whether the European Union even had a mandate to enter into such an agreement.

Despite recent reports from organisations like Human Rights Watch (Links: here and here) that documented the harassment of sub-Saharan Africans and violations of their rights by Tunisian security forces at the Tunisia-Libya border amid a generally oppressive climate, the EU intends to proceed with funding operations of the Tunisian government, under the pretext of fighting smuggling and disrupting the work of human traffickers. This follows patterns of migration co-operation with third countries like Libya which have resulted in or contributed to grave human rights violations towards refugees and ... read more in PDF.