While Italy continued its efforts to accelerate the implementation of the memorandum of understanding between the European Union (EU) and Tunisia, providing for global financial aid of 1.2 billion euros, the bad news was finally from Tunis, who seems to want to temporarily suspend negotiations for the finalization of this agreement.
Last Friday, the European Commission (EC) announced a 60 million euro budgetary support program for Tunisia and a 67 million euro operational support program for migration, both of which will be disbursed in the coming days and quickly contracted and delivered.
Last week, the Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nabil Ammar, spoke by telephone to confirm their common desire to strengthen the Tunisian-European partnership and accelerate the efforts to implement the memorandum of understanding signed between Tunis and Brussels last July.
Rome is on the move
Yesterday, Monday, September 25, the official Italian agency Ansamed announced that Italy and France, with the support of the vast majority of EU member countries, requested that the EC hold regular meetings to check the state implementation of the memorandum of understanding between Tunisia and the EU on migration.
The issue was also the focus of a working lunch between Jan Gert Koopmann, director general of the unit responsible for neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations at the EC, and the permanent representatives, reports the Italian agency, citing diplomatic sources, and adding that during this meeting, Rome and other capitals stressed the need for an “urgent application” of the said memorandum which aims to “build a sustainable capacity of the authorities Tunisians to control their borders.”
In the coming weeks, Tunis will indicate the assets it deems necessary to improve the management of migrants: from mechanical tools to the delivery of boats, fuel supply, and training of local maritime units, underlines Ansamed in his article.
“The first package of measures implementing the agreement is expected in the coming weeks”, underlines the agency, adding that during yesterday’s meeting, “it emerged that everyone agrees on the need for partnerships along the lines of the memorandum with Tunisia, which do not focus only on migration but are global.” The fight against migration in Tunisia, it was also underlined, must take place with respect for human rights, recalling that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) already operates in Tunisia to help with repatriations. and that Italy is pushing for greater involvement of the United Nations High Committee for Refugees (UNHCR).
The mood swing of Tunis
Until yesterday evening, everything finally seemed to be going in the right direction, when the process of implementing the agreement given by the Tunisian president came to a (temporary) halt. During the meeting of the National Security Council held at the Palace of Carthage, Kaïs Saïed decided to instruct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad to inform the European side of the “postponement of the visit that ‘an EC delegation had planned to visit Tunisia at a later date to be agreed between the two parties’, as announced by the presidency of the republic in a brief press release published Monday evening.
The simultaneous announcement of a visit by the head of the Tunisian diplomacy, Nabil Ammar, to Moscow on September 26 and 27, at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, cannot be separated from this change of mood. Tunisia is facing serious financial difficulties which sees in European procrastination a lack of desire to come to its aid when it needs it most.
Moscow on the line
However, Ammar’s trip to Moscow in no way signifies a Tunisian desire to reorient its foreign policy in the context of the current polarization between East and West. It is rather part of a Tunisian attempt to ensure its supplies of energy, cereals, and fertilizers from Russia. He is also accompanied on this trip by the CEO of the Cereals Office, Saloua Ben Hdaied.
It is also, incidentally, a strong signal sent to its historic partners, Europe and the United States, that Tunisia would like to reduce its dependence on Westerners and diversify its international partnerships within the framework of relations more balanced and more respectful of its sovereignty.
In this same context, the recent declarations of European officials, including French President Emmanuel Macron, regarding the sending of European security experts to Tunisia to help in the fight against irregular migration, have made people cringe. Tunis forcing President Saïed to solemnly underline, during the meeting of the National Security Council last night, his country’s attachment to its national sovereignty.
Referring to the question of budget financing, while the negotiation of a $1.9 billion loan from the IMF has been suspended for almost a year, the Tunisian president declared: “We will count on ourselves without giving up a single ounce of Tunisian sovereignty. A speech of firmness, described as populist by opponents, but which seems to please a majority of Tunisians who, despite the worsening of the crisis, continue to trust the tenant of the Carthage palace.
