Brussels, 29/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 29 April, Johannes Hahn, the commissioner for neighbourhood policy was in Tunis where he was expected to attend a seminar on “Cooperating with the Neighbours: Europe, North Africa and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)” organised by a number of German foundations.
His visit was only announced 24 hours before and takes place over a two-day timeframe. According to a press release published in Brussels, it will enable him to meet the senior authorities in the country and discuss the Tunisian transition support programme with his interlocutors. According to his spokesperson's press release, he is also expected to “sign agreements” without, however, knowing what these correspond to and to what they are related. According to reliable Tunisian sources, this will probably involve making the relatively old financial action support agreements official.
On the surface, it would appear that the main concern would be to provide some consistency to these meetings that come unexpectedly on top of those made by EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini. On Tuesday 28 April, the latter informed the Tunisian government of her unexpected visit to Tunis, which has been planned for Thursday 30 April. This visit, confirmed by the Tunisian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, will, according to our sources in Brussels, just be a brief stopover on her return from a mission to New York. A certain mystery was created by the mention of possible meetings with Libyan emissaries that have so far not been identified. This, however, had still not been confirmed when we went to press and no official information has been given on the subject of this mission. Notwithstanding whether these meetings will go ahead, Mogherini will use this occasion to consult the Tunisians about the dossier on illegal immigration flows. It should be pointed out that she has received a mandate from the recent European Council to organise the fight against smugglers and traffickers. (Fathi B'Chir)