The EU fears its credibility is at stake as it seeks to weigh growing concerns about the crushing of dissent in Tunisia while preserving a controversial migration deal with the north African country, according to a leaked document.
An internal report drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service (EEAS), seen by the Guardian, details “a clear deterioration of the political climate and a shrinking civic space” under the Tunisian president, Kais Saied, who has suspended parliament and concentrated power in his hands since starting his term of office in 2019.
EU officials expect Saied to remain in power after presidential elections on 6 October. The buildup to the vote has been marked by the jailing of opponents and the prosecution of dissenters under the pretext of spreading false information.
The document will fuel concerns about the 2023 EU-Tunisia migration pact, aimed at stopping people from reaching Europe from the country, which has already triggered accusations of bankrolling dictators.
“EU-Tunisia relations have become more complex,” concludes the document, which the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, sent to the bloc’s foreign ministers on 7 July. “The EU continues to have a keen interest in preserving its partnership with Tunisia in order to ensure the country’s stability,” the report continues, describing this tie as a means to ensure socioeconomic stability, respect for human rights and “continue[d] effective cooperation on migration management”.
The EU fears that without such support Tunisia will fall under the influence of “hostile third countries”, which, although they are not named, almost certainly refers to “competitors” Russia, Iran and China.
And the report lays bare the fears of Borrell’s team that the EU’s credibility could suffer as the bloc seeks to weigh human rights with curbing migration and pursuing broader ties. “This will entail striking an increasingly difficult balance between the EU’s credibility in terms of values and its interest in staying constructively engaged with the Tunisian authorities,” it notes.
The five-page report recounts the arrest of opposition politicians, journalists, lawyers and businesspeople before next month’s presidential elections. Also arrested have been people working for NGOs that help migrants, “the majority of which are implementing partners of EU-funded programmes”, the EU document notes.
Since the EU report was written, more people have been detained, including the veteran human rights activist and journalist Sihem Bensedrine, the former president of the Truth and Dignity Commission, which was set up after the Arab spring to investigate decades of human rights abuses. She was ordered into pre-trial detention on 1 August, after an investigation widely considered to have been based on trumped-up charges.
Before her arrest, Bensedrine had spoken out against political repression and the “poisonous atmosphere” in Tunisia, after Saied’s racist tirades against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
The EEAS report notes that “public outcry and scrutiny” about violence, evictions and other mistreatment of migrants and asylum seekers “in which the authorities are often implicated” raises “critical questions about EU’s support to border management authorities”.
The report was commissioned by Borrell and sent to 27 EU foreign ministers.
The Guardian shared a copy with Hussein Baoumi at Amnesty International, who said its analysis reflected a very dire situation. “There is no hiding from that reality: that the situation in Tunisia in terms of human rights and democratic backsliding is very worrying.”
The final part of the report, however, was “like it was written by a completely different person” who had not read the earlier pages, he said. “It is saying that the EU must continue to engage more with the Tunisian authorities, continue to expand cooperation, to expand their partnership, even though it’s very clearly aware that this would be in violation of the EU’s commitments towards promoting human rights, to international law and rule of law.”
“By expanding cooperation with Tunisia in order for international migration control,” he said, the EU “has given quite some leverage to Tunisia”.
Udo Bullmann, a veteran Social Democrat MEP, said the political and human rights situation in Tunisia was “worrisome now” and had been “worrisome” when the memorandum of understanding was signed. “The European Commission has granted EU taxpayer’s money to an authoritarian regime that tries to restrict all opposition through inhuman methods,” he said.
The EU promised €105m to Tunisia in 2023 to fight people smugglers, expanding an existing multimillion-euro border-control fund. The Tunisian government later said it had handed back €60m to Brussels.
The commission, Bullmann added, should investigate the human rights situation of a country before undertaking any foreign policy.
The commission has been contacted for comment.
