Interior Minister Faeser is in Tunisia today. She wants the country to take back rejected asylum seekers — a difficult undertaking, also because President Saied is governing in an increasingly authoritarian manner.
A completely overcrowded boat with refugees capsizes on the way to Europe. Many people die, including many children. Again and again such dramas take place in the Mediterranean. Most recently last week southwest of the Greek Peloponnese peninsula.
According to the UN, since 2014 more than 26,000 migrants and asylum seekers have died or disappeared crossing the Mediterranean Sea. These are the kinds of images and numbers that Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has in mind when she travels to Tunisia. She was deeply shaken and wanted to work on creating legal migration routes and concluding migration agreements, says the SPD politician.
In addition, Faeser has the states and municipalities breathing down his neck. Local politicians from all parties have been complaining for months that they are overburdened. They fear that taking in and caring for refugees could overwhelm society. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has recorded 125,566 initial applications for asylum so far this year. That is 76 percent more than in the same period of the previous year. Most people come from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey – followed by Iran, Iraq and Georgia.
“Talent Partnerships” and “Return Processes”
Interior Minister Faeser is therefore under pressure. This is probably one of the reasons why she has now made her way to Tunisia. She wants to hold talks there with Tunisian President Kais Saied and Interior Minister Kamel Fekih, together with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
Topics are the promotion of legal migration routes, especially for training and work purposes. The Ministry of the Interior speaks of “talent partnerships”. It should also be about how human smuggling can be curbed and how sea rescue and cooperation in the field of police training can be strengthened. The topic of “return processes” is likely to be particularly important to Faeser: people without a right to stay in Germany should return voluntarily, and the processes should be accelerated.
Kais Saied (right) talks to Ursula von der Leyen and Giorgia Meloni (left) in the Presidential Palace in Tunis.
A give and take
The trip builds on the efforts of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. A week earlier she had launched a charm offensive with the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with their visit to Tunis. The request is obvious: the economically ailing Maghreb state of Tunisia is to be nurtured into a strategic partner. In return, the country should prevent so many people from there from coming to Europe via the Mediterranean.
According to the EU border protection agency Frontex, Tunisia has now become a main transit country. More than half of the refugees arriving in Italy made their way from Tunisia by boat. An agreement on the “partnership package” is still pending. The EU is offering an aid package worth one billion euros, an Erasmus program for Tunisian students and partnerships with professionals.
In return, Tunisia should better control its borders. “We will work towards an operational partnership to combat human smuggling,” the EU said. “And we will support Tunisia with border management.”
Critics see dependence on autocrats
It’s a charm offensive that also provokes criticism. Because Tunisia was once considered a beacon of hope for democratization. But President Saied is governing in an increasingly authoritarian manner, arresting political opponents and stirring up sentiment against migrants from other African countries. Then there are the economic problems in the country.
Critics say after the 2016 EU-Turkey deal with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now the turn of the Tunisian President. In order to keep migrants away from Europe’s shores, the EU is becoming dependent on autocratic heads of government and tyrants.
Migration researcher Ruud Koopmans, on the other hand, welcomes Faeser’s trip to Tunisia. It is good that the interior minister is supporting von der Leyen’s initiative to negotiate with the Maghreb state. From Koopman’s point of view, migration agreements with third countries are essential in order to implement the reform plans in EU asylum policy.
A “win-win situation”?
A week and a half ago, the EU countries agreed to tighten the right to asylum. Accordingly, asylum applications from migrants who come from countries of origin with a recognition rate of less than 20 percent should already be checked at the EU’s external borders. Those seeking protection should remain in strictly controlled reception facilities. Anyone who has no chance of asylum should not even enter the country and be sent back immediately after the fast-track procedure.
Koopmans doubts that this will work without a readmission agreement with third countries such as Tunisia. The concern: that people will then be stuck in camps for a long time under inhumane and unacceptable conditions, similar to the “hotspots” in Greece. Koopmans expects a “win-win situation” from agreements with countries like Tunisia.
Countries like Tunisia could get legal quotas for economic migrants and students. Such quotas would be a great incentive because Tunisian professionals could transfer money back to their families in their home country. In return, rejected migrants would have to be taken back from the EU’s external borders. Even those who only passed through Tunisia. Koopmans hopes that fewer people will then go into the hands of traffickers on the dangerous boat trip to Italy because there is no longer an incentive to do so.
Money and political warning concessions
Koopmans, on the other hand, doesn’t think it’s a good idea to lure countries like Tunisia into such agreements with money. The danger would be to make yourself easily blackmailed. It would be different with negotiations at eye level on migration policy. Because both sides could benefit from agreeing on quotas for economic migrants.
The migration researcher also warns against making political concessions to Tunisian President Saied. It is important to insist that the country returns to democratic conditions. Otherwise undesirable effects could result. Namely that more and not fewer people leave the country and make their way to Europe via the Mediterranean.
Criticism by Pro Asyl
Human rights organizations such as Pro Asyl criticize the planned migration agreement. They fear, that such cooperation aims to ward off refugees and does not focus on protecting people. In the case of existing cooperation, such as with Turkey or the Libyan coast guard, serious human rights violations occur time and again without the EU drawing any consequences.
What means border security on paper often means violence against fleeing people and human rights violations in practice. Pro Asyl assumes that people fleeing then often take even more dangerous routes. The result would be more instead of fewer boat accidents on the Mediterranean Sea with fatal consequences.
Pro Asyl also doesn’t expect anything good from the planned fast-track procedures at the EU’s external borders: Above all, deportations that violate international law because impending human rights violations cannot be adequately checked. Fair procedures are not possible if people seeking protection are isolated in a targeted manner and receive no independent support.
Federal Interior Minister Faeser, who wants to become Prime Minister in the Hessian state elections in October, defends the EU asylum compromise that she helped negotiate. The alternative is that everything continues as before at the EU’s external borders. Whether the plans for a readmission agreement with Tunisia can be implemented probably depends on Faesers and the negotiating skills of the EU.