On Tuesday 12 September in Strasbourg, MEPs were sharply divided over the agreement sealed in July between the EU and Tunisia, which is intended to help Tunisia prevent migrants from leaving for the EU.
While some MEPs, particularly on the right, supported the objectives of this agreement and even regretted that it was not implemented more quickly, another fairly large group of MEPs denounced it, with the Dutch MEP Sophie in’ t Veld (Renew Europe) even speaking of a “betrayal of European values”.
In July, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the leaders of Italy and the Netherlands, Giorgia Meloni and Mark Rutte, signed a memorandum of understanding covering both macroeconomic support and migration, with a budget of €105 million to prevent people leaving (see EUROPE 13240/5).
The MEPs were quick to denounce an agreement in which they were not involved and the context in which it was signed, at a time when Tunisia has been accused for several months of turning back migrants in the desert.
For Dutch EPP MEP Jeroen Lenaers, the agreement is nevertheless “a very important step” in stemming the flow of migrants into the EU, but “two months on, there hasn’t been much improvement”. “We are in September and the figures for arrivals are already higher than last year”, he said, calling on the Tunisian side to proceed with the same urgency as the EU did when it signed the agreement.
For Malik Azmani (Renew Europe, Dutch), “it is very clear that our citizens expect the Union to take action; that is why I am in favour of a very broad agreement on migration”. “Our common objective is not to have even more victims, and we can only achieve this by working with our neighbours”, but “we must ensure that any agreement is in line with fundamental rights”, he added.
He also criticised the fact that the agreement seems to be “stuck in the application phase” and that it has not yet produced any visible results. As this agreement is intended to serve as a “model for future agreements”, it is “necessary to take immediate action”, he added.
However, for left-wing groups such as S&D, the Greens/EFA and The Left, the agreement itself should be reconsidered. Udo Bullmann (S&D, German) wondered why the framework of the association agreement between the EU and Tunisia had not been exploited to accommodate this new partnership. The association agreement includes an “Article 2 forcing us to respect human rights; is this a coincidence?”
“The Libyan experience should have taught us that this kind of agreement is doomed to failure”, commented Brando Benifei (S&D, Italian). “My party is going to Tunisia to see whether another legal migration route is possible. We cannot be blackmailed by dictators or would-be dictators”.
Birgit Sippel (S&D, German) believes that, as this type of agreement is likely to recur, we must be all the more “vigilant”.
For his part, Greens/EFA MEP Mounir Satouri denounced a “mode of action that makes us hostage to authoritarian regimes” and leaves the EU “vulnerable in terms of its values”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Camille Cerise Gessant)