EU Offers €1 Billion to Tunisia to Stop Immigration

The European Union offered over €1 billion (us$1.1 billion) to the authoritarian government in Tunisia to stop migrants from crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Italy.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte traveled to Tunisia on Sunday to discuss the financial assistance package.

The deal includes:

• €900 million for “macro-financial assistance” to help Tunisia’s struggling economy
• €150 million to support a reform agenda set by the International Monetary Fund
• €105 million for border management, combating human trafficking, and anti-smuggling initiatives

Economic mismanagement: Tunisia’s economy is suffering from skyrocketing energy prices, high unemployment and inflation. Food scarcity increased this year due to the government’s inability to pay higher global prices to import food or subsidize Tunisian farms. Tunisia’s debt is estimated to be 80 percent of its gross domestic product.

A payoff to stop immigration: Tunisian visa policy currently allows for around 100 nationalities to travel to the country without a visa, making Tunisia a stepping-stone into Europe for many sub-Saharan Africans. This year, there has been a 292 percent growth in attempted crossings from Tunisia compared to 2022, according to the EU border agency Frontex.

Meloni said, “Destabilization in Tunisia would have serious repercussions on the stability of all Northern Africa, and those repercussions inevitably arrive here.”

The day before the visit, Tunisian President Kais Saied said that he would not allow his country to become Europe’s border guard.

Saied’s political opponent, Jawhar Ben Mbarek, who was arrested in February as part of Saied’s authoritarian crackdown, said: “The fear of refugees in Europe is so great that they want to cooperate with a dictator.”

Coming clash: This influx in immigration and the EU’s attempts at stopping it are signs of a soon-coming confrontation. Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in his article “The Holy Roman Empire Goes Public—Big Time!”:

A trend is unfolding in Europe that you should keep a close watch on. Europeans have been besieged by immigrants from the Middle East, growing Muslim populations within their midst, cityscapes filling with mosques and minarets, portions of their cities turning into Muslim enclaves that local police dare not enter, even Islamic terrorist attacks. And more and more Europeans are looking for solutions in their own history. Specifically, their religious history.

To see how this growing tension is leading to a collision between Europe and the Islamic world, read “Is North Africa Europe’s Next Crisis?”