Outsourced Borders: The EU-Tunisian Relationship

‘In times of geopolitical uncertainties, it is important to deepen our cooperation with our strategic partners.’

With these words, on July 16, 2023, in Tunis, in the presence of Tunisian President Saïed, Italian Prime Minister Meloni, and Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen introduced to the world the newly signed Memorandum of Understanding between the European Union and Tunisia.

The agreement was based on the so-called “five pillars”: macroeconomic stability, trade and investment, green energy transition, people-to-people contacts, and migration and mobility.

In practice, the last pillar quickly became the centre of gravity, as the EU sought to deter irregular departures by financing and equipping Tunisian authorities to police Europe’s external border from the southern shore. This article analyses that choice as part of a broader policy architecture, externalization, through which the EU outsources border control to third countries, often where democratic checks are weak, and rights protections are contested. The question that follows is not only whether the approach “works” on arrivals, but what kind of neighbourhood the EU is building in the process.

The EU has long gestured in this direction through its Global Approach to Migration (2005) and Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (2011), which encouraged upstream control and partnerships along routes. The 2023 MoU with Tunis translated that strategic preference into a country-specific bargain: near-term migration management support in exchange for cooperation across those five pillars. The pages that follow examine how this bargain has unfolded, and what it reveals about the trade-offs between operational deterrence and the Union’s stated commitments to human dignity and the rule of law.

Tunisia’s political context

Understanding Tunisia’s trajectory under President Kaïs Saïed is essential to evaluating the deal’s implications. Since 25 July 2021, when Saïed invoked Article 80 of the 2014 Constitution to dissolve parliament and dismiss the government, Tunisia has experienced a marked erosion of checks and balances. A new constitutional text, approved via a low-turnout referendum on 25 July 2022, consolidated presidential power. International observers widely read these steps as an authoritarian turn that has narrowed civic space and chilled opposition.

Elections in 2024 extended Saïed’s mandate amid very limited participation, while authorities intensified pressure on critics and civil society organizations. In this climate, migration control has been pursued through heavy-handed tactics such as detentions, pushbacks toward Libyan and Algerian borders, restrictions on NGOs working with refugees and asylum seekers, raising consistent allegations of abuses, particularly against Black and sub-Saharan communities. These patterns pre-date but were accelerated by the MoU, underscoring the core dilemma for EU policy: partnering for deterrence with a state where rights guarantees are weak risks complicity and undermines Europe’s normative credibility.

Western response, however, has fallen short. Although some European countries raised concerns, the political line remained focused on combating irregular migration. Despite Tunisia’s authoritarian turn, Brussels continued engaging with what it still considers a key partner. Even the United States showed a degree of detachment, criticizing President Saïed’s actions but failing to act concretely, refraining from demanding the release of political prisoners or cutting aid.

Deal

With the deal, the two Parties therefore supported:

• joint efforts in sea rescue operations;

• the will to discourage Tunisian emigration, by acting directly in disadvantaged areas and fostering the development of job skills;

• the creation of a system for identification and repatriation.

More than two years after the MoU entered into force, can we say that the objectives and values of the EU have been upheld?

From the point of view of economic and infrastructural cooperation, major projects like the ELMED interconnector, a 220-kilometer power cable with a capacity of 600 MW, have overcome the final bureaucratic hurdles and construction has begun, effectively delivering on the promise of economic development partnership made by the Parties.

When it comes to migration, however, the same cannot be said. Although medium-term results show a reversal in the trend of arrivals, it cannot be claimed that the Tunisian government has acted in full respect of international humanitarian conventions.

To support the implementation of the MoU, the European Union committed to providing financial assistance to Tunis. It first delivered a package of nearly €127 million in September 2023, followed by another of €150 million in March 2024. The first bundle was split into €60 million of direct financial support to Tunisia’s coffers and €67 million for an operational assistance package on migration. The EU also pledged €105 million to improve the situation on the Italian island of Lampedusa. The March 2024 aid package, on the other hand, was focused on supporting the plan for Tunisia’s macroeconomic reforms (Programme d’Appui aux Réformes Macro-Économiques de la Tunisie (PARME)), in line with the first of the five pillars.

According to data from the Council of the European Union, in 2023 there were 275,049 arrivals and 3,711 deaths. In 2024, these numbers dropped to 207,814 and 3,395, and by July 2025, they stood at 83,153 and 1,160.

In Italy, according to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the number of arrivals from January 1st to September 12th in the years 2023–2025 were 122,823, 44,676, and 47,313, respectively.

However, these results conceal serious human rights violations recorded in recent years, due to the increasingly hostile political climate.

Having strengthened his leadership, Saïed intensified human rights violations against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, particularly Black and sub-Saharan African people. Between 2023 and 2024, at least 10,000 individuals were forcibly pushed toward the borders with Algeria and Libya, mostly into desert areas without access to water or food. This was carried out through summary procedures, torture, and abuse of power by authorities, who also severely restricted the activities of at least 14 organizations working with refugees, by means of intimidation, arrests, and inspections of senior representatives.

As of October 2024, over 15,600 asylum seekers had registered with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), including more than 7,400 Sudanese people fleeing the conflict that has plagued their country since April 2023.

Source: Frontex and Spanish Ministry of Interior

Number of arrivals in the EU – 2023-2025* *2025 goes up to July

Source: UNHCR

Number of fatalities in the EU – 2023-2025* *2025 goes up to July

EU’s outsourcing isn’t limited to Tunisia

The European Union has not, of course, limited itself to Tunisia but has, over the years, expanded both the actors involved in the externalization of its migration policy and the number of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) signed.

Indeed, on March 17, 2024, it announced together with Egypt their Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership. This agreement, once again, aligns with the principles set out in the GAMM (Global Approach to Migration and Mobility), which strongly advocated the need for explicitly integrated legal mobility. Thus, the EU aims to financially support its partner and assist in migration governance, recognizing Egypt’s key role in the region.

The opportunities that von der Leyen had offered through the MoU with Tunisia are once again put forward in the form of Talent Partnerships, guaranteeing people-to-people connections, at least on paper. On June 29, 2024, the two parties signed an MoU worth one billion euros in macro-financial assistance for Egypt.

On March 7, 2024, Team Europe committed to a strategic partnership with the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. The agreement foresees economic support from EU institutions to help the African state manage irregular migratory flows and human trafficking routes, to strengthen capacities for identification, registration, and documentation of asylum seekers in Mauritania, and for the reception and management of asylum seekers and refugees, in respect of human rights, with special attention to the most vulnerable. Youth and investment remain key priorities.

With Lebanon as well, von der Leyen reaffirmed one billion euros in funding to be used for support for border and migration management, including combating human trafficking and smuggling, as well as strengthened support to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Outcomes similar to those seen with Tunisia have also occurred in Libya, a country which, every year, commits serious crimes against migrants held in detention camps, where they are subjected to all kinds of abuse, having their dignity completely stripped away. In Italy, the country that in 2017 signed the MoU with Libya, the number of landings and deaths at sea decreased drastically, due to an

aggressive Libyan coast guard and the inhuman managers of reception centers. In recent years, sub Saharan migrants pushed to the borders from Tunisia are captured and tortured by Libyan forces. As of December 2024, more than 5,470 foreign refugees remain arbitrarily detained in centers run by the Department for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM). Thousands more are held hostage by other groups.

Amnesty International has also raised criticisms against Morocco; Rabat is accused of having pursued migration policies like those of Tunisia, carrying out numerous racially motivated arrests before abandoning people at the border with Algeria. The Spanish news agency EFE later reported an abuse of power by the authorities, which resulted in the death of 37 individuals and the disappearance of another 77, when a group of about 2,000 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa attempted to enter Melilla on June 24, 2022. Despite these abuses, the European Union continues to maintain a strong relationship with Morocco and to provide it with €236 million in support of the implementation of the Moroccan Strategy on Migration and Asylum.

In light of all this, what can be said about EU migration policies?

Conclusion

Casting a glance at the Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted by the Council of the European Union on May 14, 2024, one can notice Europe’s intention to continue shaping its migration policy around externalization (and therefore around forging new agreements with the countries most involved in the phenomenon of departures) and around respect for the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, through solid guarantees and effective screening processes.

In practice, the Tunisian case shows how operational deterrence can advance while safeguards lag behind, especially where institutions are weak and oversight is limited.

But why is the second point always the most fragile?

One reason lies in misaligned incentives. Partners facing domestic authoritarian pressures prioritize control over rights, and when monitoring is constrained the EU’s conditionality becomes difficult to apply consistently. With Tunisia, Europe criticised democratic backsliding but ultimately chose

continuity of cooperation, signalling that short-term border management could outrank principled censure.

A second reason is political. In a climate where irregular migration is salient, governments seek visible results. “Team Europe” language projects unity, yet credibility rests on behaviour in the field, not on communiqués, and the drive for quick fixes can eclipse longer-term institution-building and rights protection.

A third reason is geopolitical competition. When partners hedge toward alternative patrons, European leverage erodes. Tunisia’s steps toward China and fresh Gulf financing narrowed Brussels’ room to escalate on rights without risking cooperation on migration or energy.

It is also true that Tunisia faces a major economic emergency, coupled with Saïed’s growing unpopularity. The North African country relies on external resources, while an IMF programme remains stalled; this dependence both invites bargains and tempts transactionalism unless safeguards are hard wired. Tunisia thus finds itself in partial international isolation and continues to depend on external financing.

With Tunisia, as with any other country, the EU should seek agreements capable of safeguarding human rights without compromising the effectiveness of stopping departures.

To bring such a plan to completion, it is necessary to:

• demand access for inspectors and journalists in all those territories that currently do not allow it and that are actors in the violence against migrants;

• link this demand to the threat of individual sanctions and partial or total suspension of funding;

• impose sanctions for crimes already committed and documented;

• use diplomatic relations built over time as leverage to persuade foreign authorities to make compromises (for example, Meloni has moved quite close to the Tunisian President, and this could allow her to further emphasize the need to guarantee human rights for all asylum seekers and refugees);

• develop balanced MoUs that ensure border control, thus preventing the advance of political extremisms;

• strengthen the democratic conditionality of funds. Greater respect for human rights will correspond to more funds allocated to economic development and border management;

• promote further Talent Partnerships.

The European Union embraces democratic principles and promotes them in its externalization actions and foreign policy. Will Team Europe remain such only on paper?

Bibliography

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