Brussels, 20/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Union stated on Thursday 20 January that it was looking at the possibility of freezing the assets of ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his family. “It's one of the options on the table”, the spokeswoman for EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton told press. COREPER (the committee of member states' permanent representatives to the EU) will discuss the matter on Friday 21 January. The EU decision will come, at the latest, in the next meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, on 31 January.
Freezing the assets of the Ben Ali family, should that, in, fact, be the decision reached, would be one of a raft of measures, largely economic, by the EU to support the new Tunisian authorities. On Wednesday 19 January, Switzerland froze the assets that Ben Ali and his associates hold in that country to prevent their transfer abroad. Last Saturday, France froze all possible suspicious financial movement of Tunisian assets in France. Germany is believed to back any freezing of bank accounts which the former Tunisian president and those close to him hold in the EU. (L.C./transl.rt)