Is Europe sacrificing Tunisia’s democracy for migrant returns? EU offers financial aid in exchange for closer cooperation on migration

A few days after the tightening of asylum law, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni traveled to Tunis on Sunday. During the short-term working visit, the trio offered Tunisia’s President Kais Saied closer cooperation on migration and the economy in the future.

Saied, who was recently criticized by the EU Parliament for his autocratic style of government, will receive a lavish increase in payments from Brussels. 100 million euros are to flow for border search and rescue operations, measures against smugglers and the repatriation of migrants.

150 million in budget support will be transferred to Tunis as soon as a memorandum between Tunisia and the EU, scheduled for later this month, is approved. A macroeconomic cash injection of 900 million euros is to flow this year. After the negotiations in the presidential palace, von der Leyen added that respect for human rights is important when dealing with the issue of migration together.

For months, Tunisia has been the main hub for migrants who cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy by boat. According to the Interior Ministry in Rome, 53,800 migrants from Tunisia have already been registered in Lampedusa and Sicily this year, more than twice as many as in the entire previous year.

In addition to migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, more and more Tunisians are leaving their homeland. Since only very few Tunisians are granted asylum in the EU, almost all new arrivals are likely to be detained directly in Italy and sent back to their home country after a fast-track procedure.

President Saied has continued to increase the number of boat people

The country with twelve million inhabitants was even threatened with bankruptcy until Sunday due to the repayment of several loans due this year and the economic crisis that has been ongoing since the corona pandemic. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a new $1.9 billion loan have been stalling for months because President Saied calls the associated reforms a dictate. He had previously sworn the Tunisians would handle the crisis alone.

The day before the three-way visit to Tunis, Saied had ruled out that his country would act as border police for Europe: “We cannot fulfill a role (…) in which we guard your countries,” he said in Sfax. Without close cooperation with Tunisia, however, Italy will not be able to implement the new approach to migrants that Prime Minister Meloni has celebrated as a success.

It was even Kais Saied himself who drove many of the originally more than 20,000 migrants out of Tunisia with a heated speech in February, where they worked without a clear residence status due to the lack of an asylum law. The former law professor claimed that they were part of a conspiracy against the Arabic and Islamic cultures of North Africa.

Since then there have been racist attacks on migrants, which is why many sub-Saharan Africans are waiting on the coast between the cities of Mahdia and Sfax for a crossing to Europe. Accidents happen every day, people die because the smugglers put up to 40 people in completely unsuitable boats. Several West African governments have reacted with outrage at the treatment of their compatriots in Tunisia. The Tunisian government has denied that there were any attacks and is now once again courting West African students who can enter Tunisia without a visa.

An additional loan from Italy would come in handy for the cash-strapped country

The overall political situation is extremely tense. More than 20 politicians and journalists are in prison on allegations of corruption, and Saied has ruled with presidential decrees since his coup in July 2021. Giorgia Meloni has nonetheless chosen Saied and Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dabaiba as partners in her planned alliance against human traffickers and migrants, in order to implement her election promise to drastically reduce the number of migrants landing in Italy. During their lightning visits to Tunis and Tripoli last week, the three decided to hold a conference soon with states that are on the migration route to Europe.

In the event of an agreement between Tunisia and the IMF, Italy wants to add another 700 million euros. Rarely has the mostly distant and cool president smiled so heartily as when he appeared together with the right-wing nationalist Meloni in front of the TV cameras in the presidential palace in Tunis-Carthage.

Saied rejects the IMF loan because the associated reduction in subsidies for consumer goods would primarily affect workers in the informal sector in Tunisia. In the south of the country, almost half of the economic output is done without employment contracts or tax registration. State social benefits to cushion rising fuel and food prices would bypass informal workers.

Tunisia should stop getting closer to China and Russia

The low turnout in the parliamentary elections initiated by Saied and the referendum on the constitution he wrote shows that even the president, who was elected with an overwhelming majority in 2019, is not immune to social unrest. The additional Italian loan is a concession to the criticism of the IMF program shared by many Tunisians. The EU aid is not tied to a reform program, and Brussels apparently wants to prevent Saied from turning to Beijing, Riyadh or Moscow.

The “National Party of Tunisia”, which is close to him, regularly organizes panel discussions with the ambassadors of China and Russia and promotes Tunisia’s cooperation with the Brics Confederation of States. After their campaign against migrants, the Tunisian nationalists had already identified a new enemy: Tunisian civil society, which is being funded by Western funds, wants to dictate the western lifestyle to the country and is undermining the president’s attempt to fight the corruption of the political elite, a spokesman for the movement said in social media.

This means that the German foundations that have been active since the Arab Spring could now also be targeted by the authorities. The Tunisian civil society they support is the last active control body to prevent Saied from becoming completely omnipotent. The day before their trip to Tunis, the delegation from Europe had been given leverage. Rating agency Fitch downgraded Tunisia’s credit rating by another notch to CCC- on Saturday.

It is not known whether the visitors have now demanded concrete steps such as an end to the arrests of opposition figures and migrants in return for their lavish gifts of money from Saied. Journalists who could have asked were not admitted to the final statement of the visit.

Mirco Keilberth

© Süddeutsche Zeitung 2023