Brussels, 19/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - The sixth session of the EU-Tunisia Association Council, which was held on Monday evening in Brussels on the sidelines of the General Affairs Council, assessed the state of play with cooperation with a country which will, at the end of the year, be the first to achieve full free trade with the EU, 12 years after signing an agreement. Brussels positively assesses the rapid development of trade, which, according to a Community source, bears witness to the positive effects of the agreement. The EU notes that Tunisia has increased its trade positions on the European market and is believed even to have become the country of the area whose “commercial integration with the EU is the most advanced”, even though its trade remains highly concentrated on traditional geographic outlets and a limited number of sectors (textiles, clothing, electricity and mechanics and, to a lesser extent, agriculture). The Commission hopes to encourage it to liberalise its services sector and to facilitate the right of establishment, to work harder to ensure respect for intellectual property and competition and greater fairness in matters relating to public procurement and State monopoly. The future task will be to complete tariff dismantling, a job which is nearly completed, in spite of a few restrictions (on processed fishery and agricultural products, amongst other things), by the gradual removal of non-tariff barriers. The EU is also committed to stand beside Tunisia to bring its legislation and industrial standards as close to its own as possible. Committees and sub-committees have been tasked with refining cooperation in various fields covered by the agreement and the EU notes the excellent work which they have carried out. However, it hopes that the committees on access to the internal market, affairs of justice and, the most recent, on human rights will become fully operational.
Political dialogue is seen as the cornerstone for this link. For the EU, in order to be sustainable, any economic development must be accompanied by political liberalisation. Tunisia is, furthermore, “urged” in each circumstance to take this path and to ensure the “balance” of its development, between political and economic aspects. On this latter point, the EU spoke of the excellent performance of the Tunisian economy, with growth rates of around 5%, consistently over a number of years. Its reforms, which are designed to modernise, have allowed it to attain the highest level in the whole of North Africa, according to the Commission. Its macro-economic stability and budgetary rigour were also praised. But the assessment of these performances is tempered by the scale of challenges remaining in the field of employment, the fight against inflation and to raise the level of investment. The EU supports this agreement and has pledged 300 million EUR to support it in the period 2007-2010. (F.B.)