EU Elections

HOW OTHERS SEE THE EU
Recent EU agreements with Tunisia,
Egypt and Mauritania come with promises
of reforms, economic stability, and a
mix of programmes that span education
to energy.
But at their core is the EU’s prerogative
to stem irregular migration primarily
towards frontline Mediterranean ‘arrival’
states such as Italy and Spain, amid
budgetary concessions to foreign governments
with their own motives and
agendas.
“Most countries consider that they’re already
doing enough. They have no inclination
to assist the EU,” said Catherine
Woollard, director of the Brussels-based
European Council on Refugees and Exiles.
“It doesn’t mean that they won’t play a
game on this and try to extract benefits
and concessions and other advantages
from offering or pretending to offer support
and hosting of people that Europe
doesn’t want,” she said.
In June 2023, one senior European Commission
official made similar off-record
comments on Tunisia. “My feeling at this
point is that, especially countries in the
neighbourhood, will not sign up to any
purely migration-flow arrangements,” he
told journalists.
So, when the European Commission
published its blueprint agreement with
Tunis two weeks later, it listed migration
at the bottom of issues — which ranged
from agriculture to the green energy
transition.
First, it promised €900m in macro-financial
assistance, following a reform
programme from the International Monetary
Fund, as well as direct budgetary
support.
And it cited an agreement on renewable
energy production, as well as a roadmap
on energy market reforms, and a 220km
Six weeks
after the
Tunisia
agreement
was signed,
irregular
migrant
arrivals in
Italy were
almost 70
percent
higher than
six weeks
prior.
submarine power line to Italy (that had
already been planned for years).
EU officials claim that the production
of green electricity in Tunisia could take
place at a cost of about two cents per
kilowatt-hour, compared to around 10
cents for industry in Europe.
They also say green hydrogen could be
transported to the EU through four existing
gas pipelines, amid future plans to
link Tunisia to the EU electricity market.
Another EU official, again speaking off
the record, said other states with migratory
challenges also presented opportunities
in terms of trade and intensified
economic ties.
“This is clearly true for Egypt and Morocco,”
he had said, last summer.
Cracks appear
Six weeks after the Tunisia agreement
was signed, irregular migrant arrivals in
Italy were almost 70 percent higher than
six weeks prior.
Yet EU officials and leaders continued to
spin the Brussels-Tunis ‘memorandum of
understanding’ as one that encapsulates
the pressing issues important to Tunisia,
whose economy is largely wrecked.
At an event in late September 2023,
Nicole de Moor, Belgian state secretary
for asylum and migration, praised the
deal as a template for similar agreements
elsewhere.
“What the deal is really about is to help
Tunisia — a country with major problems
to build a full-fledged state with
economic opportunities,” she said.
Within a week of de Moor’s comments,
the first serious cracks began to appear.
In October, Tunisia’s autocratic president,
Kais Saied, would chide the European
Commission over its “charity” and
“derisory” aid, putting the deal in jeopardy
when the EU executive attempted
to send funds to curb irregular migration.
And in December, Saied got his €150m
in direct budgetary support from the EU
despite repeated alarms from Amnesty
International over widespread rights
abuses in the small north African country.
“We have also seen that this has not led
to decreasing the number of arrivals to
Europe, or deaths at sea,” said Hussein
Baoumi, foreign policy advocacy officer
at Amnesty International.
Blueprint applied elsewhere
Around the same time the the European
Commission was pressuring Morocco to
take back foreign nationals.