EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte flew back to Tunis on Sunday to sign the extensive agreement on closer economic cooperation, alternative energy projects and several loans with President Kais Saied. At a first meeting with Saied four weeks ago, the trio, which calls itself “Team Europe”, described the partnership with Tunisia as a milestone in a new migration strategy in North Africa. The country of 12 million people, suffering from oppressive national debt and a long-standing economic crisis, is to receive a general loan of 900 million euros and 105 million euros for the implementation of a reform package.
The International Monetary Fund IMF had made the dismantling of the bloated state apparatus a prerequisite for a loan of 1.74 billion euros. But Kais Saied has so far rejected the IMF’s call for a reduction in food subsidies as “foreign dictates”. Now the EU Commission, together with Meloni and Rutte, is coming to the autocrat’s aid, even if a large part of the loans are tied to successful negotiations with the IMF. Irrespective of this, 105 million euros will flow from Brussels to the Tunisian border guard and the coast guard. In return, Saied is supposed to take back unrecognized asylum seekers and Tunisians with a criminal record. It is apparently unclear whether migrants from West Africa who entered the EU via Tunisia will also be taken back from Tunis.
At temperatures of more than 45 degrees, 250 migrants are apparently wandering through the Sahara
But the dramatic situation of thousands of migrants driven out of the port city of Sfax shows that Saied will also be a difficult partner for Brussels. After real hunting scenes for dark-skinned people, the authorities had put several hundred people on buses last week and abandoned them at the national borders without water or food. The National Guard is still holding around 150 migrants on a stretch of beach right next to the Libyan border crossing at Ras Jadir. Two people have already died there of weakness, Libyan border officials report to the SZ. There seem to be even more victims among those abandoned at the Algerian border. According to Tunisian human rights activists, 250 migrants are wandering through the Sahara at temperatures of more than 45 degrees. 15 dead were found there, eyewitnesses from the city of Tataouine report.
Civil society, which was shrinking as a result of Kais Saied’s autocratic course, demonstrated in Tunis on Friday against racism and the brutal treatment of migrants in Sfax. After being evicted from their homes, many migrants are now sleeping on the streets there.
However, the campaign against migrants launched in February has been well received by the majority of the population. On Friday, Kais Saied described the money transfers sent from abroad to the 50,000 migrants living in Tunisia as further evidence of a conspiracy against Tunisia. According to Saied, foreign powers are trying to destroy Tunisia’s Arab identity with the help of the migrants. One protester on Friday described the EU trio’s visit as follows: “Tunisia is now being promoted from an EU border police officer to a prison guard.”