The Memo: EU seeks to recover Tunisia migration funds amidst claims of human rights violations

When the EU signed its migration deal with Tunisia last year, the bloc probably wasn’t prepared for the reality that it’d be facilitating various human rights abuses. However, the EU previously co-operated with Tunisia’s eastern neighbours, Libya, and it was later revealed that its support for Libyan security forces had actively smoothed the way for a barrage of ‘crimes against humanity’ (as per an official UN report), including rape, torture, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances of migrants and refugees. With widespread allegations of sexual violence and police brutality, it appears a similar state of affairs is now unfolding in Tunisia. 

Critics argue, however, that this situation was entirely avoidable, due to the alarming combination of the aforementioned track record in North Africa and the current state of Tunisian politics. Tunisia in the last couple of years has steadily slipped back into a degree of clear authoritarian tendencies under incumbent President Kais Saied. Even though Tunisia was the only nation in the ‘Arab Spring’ movement to topple a dictatorial figure at the time, the country’s post-2011 democratic achievements appear to be slipping further into the distant past. The word on the street is fear of a swift return to the country’s infamous Ben Ali dictatorship, which was de-throned during the revolution just over a decade ago. 

Having been hit with the unfortunate realisation that the migration deal is not what it had seemed, the supranational bloc is now seeking to retrieve at least some of its €150m invested in Tunisia. It’s reported that there remains no current mechanism in place to claw back any of the money, particularly as a European Commission spokesperson had confirmed that mutually agreed conditions had been met. However, that was before the deal was put into practice and, with revelations of human rights abuses, lawyers are currently working to uncover hard evidence. This would help them stake an almighty legal claim that Tunisia owes the EU money after failing to meet contractual obligations. But, while the financial repatriation would be a success for the EU, it may be time for the bloc to consider a major re-think.