(CN) — In a bid to close off a major route asylum-seekers take to reach Europe, the head of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, signed a controversial migration deal on Sunday with Tunisia's authoritarian president, offering hundreds of millions in cash and a billion-dollar loan.
Under the deal the EU would pay Tunisia 255 million euros (about $286 million) to stop migrants from making the perilous sea voyage to Italy in exchange for large sums of money. The European governing body is also extending to Tunisia a long-term loan of about 900 million euros, or about $1 billion.
The agreement was signed despite reports of brutality committed by Tunisian police in expelling migrants from sub-Sahara Africa and new reports of a wave of violence against blacks living in the country of 12 million people; hundreds of Black residents reportedly have been driven from their homes and forced to live in the desert.
In February, Tunisian President Kais Saied gave a speech in which he declared that “hordes of illegal migrants” were coming to Tunisia as part of a plot to undermine Tunisia's Arab-Islamic identity. It was just one of many troubling statements and actions taken by Saied, who has dissolved parliament, curbed regional authorities and concentrated power in his own hands.
Situated only some 85 miles from Sicily, migrants, including many Tunisians, attempt to reach the EU by getting on boats launched from Tunisia. The numbers of Tunisians embarking for the EU is reportedly growing because the country is in the midst of a deep economic crisis following the coronavirus pandemic. It is struggling with soaring inflation, a steeply devalued national currency, mounting debts and worries over a debt default.
These circumstances, along with Saied's seeming determination to lay the foundations for a return to dictatorship, are threatening to boil over and destabilize a country seen as a beacon of democracy and civil society in the Muslim world.
Tunisia's geopolitical importance is significant. In 2011, it was the starting point for the Arab Spring anti-government protests that swept across North Africa and the Middle East, a series of events that led to the killing of Libya's long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi, the dethroning of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak and the outbreak of devastating civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
For Brussels to enter such a deal with this authoritarian Tunisian government is problematic because the EU presents itself as a global guardian of human rights and decency.
But anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment has exploded in Europe in reaction to the steady arrival of refugees and migrants in recent decades, fueling a rise of far-right politics. The Tunisian migration deal was spearheaded by Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a rising figure on the European political scene with goals of leading far-right forces to victory in European Parliament elections in June 2024.
Besides giving Tunisia money to block migrants, the deal between Brussels and Tunis maps out future cooperation on developing renewable energy projects in the vast arid plains and mountains of Tunisia, a country sometimes described as Europe's “gateway to Africa” due to its proximity to Italy. The agreement also intends to deepen economic ties.
At the Tunisian presidential palace, von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said the aim of the deal is to “invest in shared prosperity,” as reported by Euractiv, a European news agency.
“We need an effective cooperation, more than ever” on migration, von der Leyen said. She also framed the deal as an instrument to fight against “networks of smugglers and traffickers.”
Meloni joined von der Leyen for the signing ceremony, as did Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who also played a pivotal role in talks that took place in June to arrange the deal.
At the time, Rutte was in the midst of a political battle with coalition partners over his proposals to limit migration into the Netherlands; the impasse led to his government's unexpected collapse earlier this month with Rutte announcing he was dropping out of politics.
At the signing ceremony, Saied called for a “collective agreement on inhuman immigration and (forced) displacements of people by criminal networks” and claimed Tunisia “gave the migrants everything it can offer with unlimited generosity.”
The deal is contingent upon Saied accepting the terms of a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Despite his country's deep economic troubles, Saied has so far refused the IMF loan, which stipulates that he must lift subsidies he has handed out to Tunisians to pay for oil and electricity and restructure about 100 state-owned companies.
In 2016 the EU struck a similar, highly controversial agreement with Turkey, when more than a million asylum-seekers entered Europe following the outbreak of civil war in Syria. Turkey continues to receive large sums from the EU in exchange for blocking migrants seeking passage to Europe.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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