Tag: Tunisia

The EU is closing its doors ever tighter to immigrants and some of its leaders are betraying basic humanitarian principles, said Thomas Hammarberg, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

The European Commission published yesterday (4 May) a proposal to better manage migration, following the diplomatic tensions between Paris and Rome over an arrival of some 25,000 illegal immigrants from Tunisia. The Commission paper was welcomed by the European People's Party and the Greens, and strongly criticised by the Socialists and Liberals.

Rising to meet an historic challenge, the European Union should offer its southern neighbours the chance to participate in its single market and join the European Economic Area, which currently includes Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, Enlargement and Neighbourhood Commissioner Štefan Füle told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

The Italian government gave its green light yesterday (7 April) to a decree allowing economic migrants from Tunisia to move freely throughout the Schengen area for a three-month period. France said it could re-establish border controls.

The upheaval in North Africa holds the possibility of a renewal of the Mediterranean Union, if Europe can overcome its obsession with Islamic fundamentalism and the 'Muslim Question', argues Mustapha Tlili of New York University.

The significant participation of women in the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa challenges both local dictators and Western stereotypes, writes author and social critic Naomi Wolf.

Events in Libya are different from those in Tunisia and Egypt and could eventually lead to civil war there, according to global intelligence company Stratfor. This could in turn have a profound impact on other countries in the region and affect the political stability of the whole Middle East, warns Stratfor in a commentary.

A European Union pledge to help Tunisia's transition with 258 million euros is "ridiculous" and shows that Brussels is not up to the task of dealing with the crisis in North Africa, a Tunisian minister said yesterday (17 February).

The European Union is aiming to conclude negotiations on a new trade deal with Tunisia before presidential elections likely to take place by the end of July, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Monday (14 February).

For a second week, French Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie has been under mounting pressure to resign for having used the jet of a Tunisian businessman while on holiday. Yesterday (8 February), however, it was the turn of Prime Minister François Fillon himself to fight accusations that he accepted official Egyptian hospitality during a private trip.

Morocco's message to the EU in the context of unfolding revolutions in the region is a wider risk that a zone of unlawfulness stretching from the south of Algeria to the north of Mauritania to Mali and to Niger - a haven for AlQaeda - could expand, the Moroccan envoy to Brussels told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

EU foreign ministers are meeting today (31 January) in Brussels against a backdrop of unfolding revolution in Egypt, revolts across North Africa, tensions in Sahel, Sudan and Côte d'Ivoire, and a human rights stand-off with Belarus.

A wave of protests apparently inspired by Tunisia's 'Jasmine' revolution, which has already spread to Algeria and Yemen, has now hit EU hopeful and NATO member Albania. The country's prime minister, Sali Berisha, on 22 January slammed the opposition for what he called a "Tunisia-style" revolt.