Brussels, 11/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - The prospect of concluding a deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, negotiations on which were officially launched in April of this year, is raising serious reservations in Tunisia. EU Ambassador to Tunisia Laura Baeza seized the opportunity offered by Europe Day on Monday 9 May to try to provide reassurance.
“I know that this project is raising concerns”, she stated, but the line that will be followed will be “integration within the large EU market, yes, but gradual, asymmetrical, controlled and guided integration over time”. The DCFTA, Baeza said, “must be an instrument of integration not the opposite. In the vision of Europe's founding fathers, the market is a way to unite Europeans, not an end in itself”.
Baeza spoke of the strong relations with Tunisia, the leading country in the “Arab Spring”. In financial terms first of all: “from 1976 to 2015, EU aid (in grants) came to almost €2.9 billion” and in 2011 alone “€1 billion” was granted. “Over the same period from 1976, commitments (loans) by the European Investment Bank (EIB) amount to over €5.7 billion”. This, according to the ambassador, denotes “steady increase, reflecting our ambition for Tunisia and reflecting, too, the political transition which allows us no longer to limit ourselves to economic issues, strictly speaking, but to help with the return of the rule of law and the development of a modern democracy”. Baeza said that, “at a time when it can be seen, here and elsewhere, that poverty and social exclusion are feeding resentment and radicalisation, the EU, the goals of which are social progress and peace, does not want a weakened Tunisia - quite the opposite”. This would be “neither in our interest, nor in our philosophy, you may be sure”, she stated in conclusion. (Original version in French by Fathi B'Chir)