TUNIS: The European Union on Sunday offered Tunisia more than one billion euros in aid to boost its crisis-hit economy and reduce the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.
The North African country, highly indebted and in talks for an IMF bailout loan, is a gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting the dangerous voyages to Europe.
The EU is ready to offer Tunisia 900 million euros in long-term aid plus 150 million euros in immediate support in a bid to “strengthen our relationship”, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said on a joint visit with the Italian and Dutch prime ministers.
Aside from trade and investment, it would help Tunisia with border management and to combat human trafficking, with support worth 100 million euros this year, she said.
“We both have a vast interest in breaking the cynical business model of smugglers and traffickers,” said von der Leyen. “It is horrible to see how they deliberately risk human lives for profit.”
She said other joint projects with the bloc would help Tunisia export clean renewable energy to Europe, and deliver high-speed broadband, all with the aim of creating jobs and to “boost growth here in Tunisia”.
Von der Leyen, after the four-way talks with President Kais Saied, said she hoped an EU-Tunisia agreement could be signed before the next European summit later this month.
She stressed that the EU is Tunisia’s top trade and investment partner and had “supported Tunisia’s path to democracy” since it became the birthplace of the Arab Spring popular revolts in 2011, describing it as “a long and difficult road”.
Von der Leyen visited Tunisia with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte, for talks with Saied, who has assumed near total governing powers over the country since 2021.
Rights groups have accused him of an “authoritarian drift” for restricting civil liberties and jailing opposition activists in what Amnesty International has labelled “a witch hunt”.
EU governments, under pressure to reduce migrant arrivals, last week agreed on steps to fast-track migrant returns to their countries of origin or transit countries deemed “safe”, including Tunisia.
Italy’s far-right premier, Meloni, on her second Tunisia visit within a week, said she was “satisfied” with the EU offer of “a real partnership to face the migratory crisis and the question of development” in Tunisia.
Tunisia lies less than 150 kilometres (90 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa, and has long been a stepping stone for migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries.
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