The European Union offers Tunisia long-term aid of 900 million euros and 150 million “immediately”

The European Union proposed, on Sunday 11 June, “a strengthening of the partnership” with Tunisia. The process would go through a plan including possible long-term financial aid of 900 million euros and additional aid of 150 million to be injected “immediately” in the budget.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, claimed to have proposed to the Tunisian President Kais Saied a five-point program. The five-point program proposed by the EU provides for increased investment in Tunisia, in particular in support of the digital sector, investment in Tunisia’s export of renewable energies and the extension of the European energy exchange program. Erasmus students in Tunisia.

Strangled financially and in crisis politically

One of the other aspects proposed by Brussels concerns the fight against “cynical business” illegal immigration, for which the EU will provide “this year to Tunisia 100 million euros for the control of its borders, search and rescue” migrants, stressed Ursula von der Leyen.

Accompanied by Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the leader said she hoped an agreement would be signed between Tunisia and the European Union by the next European summit at the end of month.

Tunisia is strangled financially by a debt of about 80% of its GDP and can no longer borrow abroad, which leads to recurring shortages of certain basic products, such as flour, sugar and rice, purchased and imported by the state. The country is also marked by a political crisis, when President Kaïs Saïed assumed full powers in the summer of 2022, ordering the dissolution of Parliament and increasing the arrests of opponents.