European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has opened an own-initiative enquiry into respect for human rights in the EU-Tunisia migration agreement, she said in a statement on Friday.
The EU’s body for mediating between citizens and authorities asked the European Commission whether it had carried out a human rights impact assessment before signing the memorandum of understanding and whether it intended to carry out a periodic review of this impact during its implementation.
The Ombudsman also asked whether the Commission had defined criteria for suspending funding if human rights are not respected. The European executive has been asked to respond by 13 December.
The memorandum of understanding in question was signed between the EU and Tunisia last July. It includes financial support from the EU (€105 million) to improve the protection of Tunisia’s borders and stem irregular migration to European shores.
As previously reported, the memorandum on a ‘Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership between the EU and Tunisia’ was signed without any links to the lack of democracy in the country since the power grab by its president. The Commission says that the discussions on the democratic development of Tunisia will continue and that human rights clauses will be included in the project contracts to be signed.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni travelled to Tunis to sign the protocol. The head of the European executive stressed that it opened the door to similar agreements with other countries in the region, for example with Egypt.
However, the move has been criticised by NGOs and the left wing of the European Parliament because of the authoritarian and racist policies of Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, who openly attacks sub-Saharan migrants.
