Brussels, 19/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - The former Tunisian prime minister and former ambassador to Brussels, Rachid Sfar, has hailed the new EU stance on Tunisia. It is generally thought that this might show the EU is no longer seeking to “fraternise” with the Islamic currents either in this country or in Egypt moreover.
Sfar considers that “beyond the diplomatic language of such communications, there is an objective concise analysis of the challenges facing our country and a clear commitment to provide technical support to raise security challenges”. Nonetheless, he regrets that, when it comes to “socio-economic and financial challenges, we are always referred back to the traditional instruments already provided for in neighbourhood policy at a time when the situation in Tunisia mainly requires a regional development programme with significant access to resources” of European aid, as was the case with the European structural funds that “allowed the former eastern European countries to make up lost ground”. Sfar takes the view that “if the EU wants to deliver a true message of support to Tunisia, then it must innovate and take the clear decision to make us benefit over the next ten years from aid that is both qualitatively and quantitatively close to that which it has granted over the last ten years to the former countries of Eastern Europe” (our translation throughout). (FB/transl.jl)