On Monday 4 September, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn announced the signature of two new financing agreements on reforms for the public administration and health programmes in Tunisia.
"We will sign a financing agreement on reform of the public administration for over €70 million, and another on reform of the health system for €20 million", he said at a press conference in Tunis with Tunisia's Foreign Affairs Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui. The exact amount of assistance for public administration reform is €73.5 million. Hahn stated that the EU would provide a maximum of €1.2 billion over the period 2017-2020 "to support Tunisia".
He also announced that Tunisia and the EU had agreed on a roadmap until 2020 – a public document in which areas are identified where the two parties want make progress by 2020. "It's a sort of positive pressure on all of us to be focused on a certain number of areas", he said.
The commissioner highlighted the need to make progress in the economic domain. He said that while in 2012 Tunisia was 55th among the states in which trade is done, the country has now slipped down to 77th in the ranking. He said that by the end of the decade he would like to see Tunisia in the top 50 countries in the world for trade, but he also recognised that this was a "very ambitious" objective. Hahn proposed assistance from member state experts, especially from Austria and Germany, "which have long experience in social partnerships". "Our goal is the return of trust in Tunisia being an attractive place for investment", he said.
Hahn also spoke in favour of greater diversification of the Tunisan economy, in addition to tourism, "particularly in the internal regions". "One of the important elements is to be of interest to young people", he added. The commissioner also highlighted security, saying that "without a safe environment, it is not possible to attract tourists and investors". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)