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The contentious EU-Tunisia deal is here. What exactly is in it?

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The contentious EU-Tunisia deal is here. What exactly is in it?

Following weeks of intense negotiations, the European Union and Tunisia have finally signed a memorandum of understanding covering topics ranging from migration to economic cooperation.

The deal was unveiled on Sunday after a meeting in Tunis between Tunisian President Kais Saied and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was joined by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

“In times of geopolitical uncertainties, it is important to deepen cooperation with our strategic partners,” von der Leyen said, without taking any questions from the press.

The memorandum’s official presentation had been preceded by a flurry of speculation and media reports over how much taxpayers’ money the European Union, a staunch supporter of human rights, would be willing to disburse to Tunisia, whose government has been repeatedly accused – including by the European Parliament– of cracking down on freedom of expression, judicial independence and civil society.

President Saied, in particular, has been criticised for steering the country back into authoritarianism and spreading racist claims against African migrants using talking points that echo the great replacement, the far-right (and baseless) conspiracy theory that proclaims elites are actively replacing native populations with black people.

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Said drew a stark rebuke from the United Nations after he alleged in February that “hordes of illegal migrants” arriving from Sub-Saharan countries were part of a “criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape of Tunisia” and were the source “of violence, unacceptable crimes and practices.”

But on Sunday, von der Leyen, Rutte and Meloni glossed over the controversy and, following the motto of “the end justifies the means,” took a pragmatic approach to tackling one of the EU’s most pressing dilemmas: migration.

Here’s everything we know so far.

What’s in the memorandum?

On paper, the memorandum of understanding is a declaration of political intentions made jointly by the European Union and Tunisia to improve their bilateral relations and address common challenges in a “strategic and comprehensive” manner.

The text is not binding and does not create any obligations in and of itself. However, it presents a series of action plans that will be gradually fleshed out, turned into legal instruments and approved by member states before being implemented.

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The plans are split into five thematic pillars: macro-economic stability, economy and trade, the green transition, people-to-people contacts and migration.

Each category features different investment and cooperation projects, many of which will involve the direct disbursement of funds from the common EU budget.

How much money is foreseen?

The memorandum is vague on financial figures, which could change according to developments on the ground, but some preliminary numbers have already emerged.

One of them is €150 million, the amount of money the EU intends to provide as budgetary support for the Tunisian government, which has for the past years struggled to rein in its public finances.

The country is considered to be on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of the devastating havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, a worldwide swell in commodity prices, high unemployment and an exodus of foreign investment caused by continued democratic backsliding.

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Brussels fears the free-falling economy might soon collapse and further exacerbate Tunisia’s internal instability, pushing people out of the country and towards the bloc’s external borders.

The €150-million envelope is meant to avoid that worst-case scenario and ensure the Tunisian government has enough liquidity to ensure the provision of basic services and lay the groundwork for economic reforms.

Additionally, the memorandum foresees €307.6 million for the development of ELMED, a transmission line between Tunisia and Italy to trade low-cost renewable electricity, and up to €150 million for the construction of Medusa, a submarine cable that will use optical fibre technology to connect 11 Mediterranean countries.

These projects will combine grants from the EU budget and loans provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB), meaning some sums will have to be paid back.

What about migration?

This is definitely the crux of the matter.

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Tunisia, together with Libya, is considered one of the main gateways for asylum seekers who wish to reach European shores. Some of these migrants are Tunisian nationals who flee the country’s repressive policies, but others come from faraway places such as Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

Due to its geographic proximity, Italy represents, in the vast majority of cases, the first destination point for the thousands of migrants who every month attempt to cross the dangerous Mediterranean route, often after having paid an exorbitant amount of money to board an overcrowded boat with squalid conditions.

According to Frontex, last year saw more than 102,000 illegal border crossings through the Central Mediterranean, a 51% rise compared to 2021. Italy is struggling to cope with this surge in arrivals and has declared a state of emergency to deploy extra resources.

This is why migration is a key pillar in the memorandum, with an initial allocation of €105 million to combat anti-smuggling operations, reinforce border management and speed up the return of asylum seekers whose applications are denied.

The money will be provided to the Tunisian authorities in the form of search-and-rescue boats, jeeps, radars, drones and other types of patrolling equipment, and to international organisations that work on the ground, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

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But the disbursement of the funds will not be linked to any numerical target of annual readmissions or reduction of arrivals; and it will not have additional human rights provisions on top of the traditional clauses the EU attaches to its foreign aid programmes, despite mounting evidence of pushbacks and violent treatment against black migrants.

“We don’t wire money to authorities to do as they please,” said a senior EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to defend the memorandum’s most sensitive aspects. “This is not a blank cheque at all.”

The senior official insisted Tunisia would only be expected to accept the return of its own nationals – not of the thousands of asylum seekers who travel through the country in a bid to reach the bloc, something which will be done on a voluntary basis with IOM and UNCHR support. Similarly, Tunisia will not be asked to host in its territory other nationalities that have been denied a chance to seek refuge in the bloc.

“Tunisia is not foreseen to be a collecting point for irregular migrants,” the official said, recalling a similar statement previously made by the Tunisian government.

In parallel, the EU will strive to make it easier for highly-skilled Tunisians to move to the bloc for work through legal pathways and so-called “talent partnerships.” Germany, France and Belgium have already offered 300 positions as part of this initiative, the official said, with a goal to get to 700 by the end of the year.

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Could there be more money in the pipeline?

Yes, there could be, but it all depends on the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

As a complement to the over €700 million that has already been earmarked, Brussels is willing to put on the table a substantial envelope of macro-financial assistance to fortify Tunisia’s fragile economy and prevent the situation from spiralling out of control.

Ursula von der Leyen said last month the bloc was ready to supply “up to €900 million” in this regard but when she spoke on Sunday, she avoided specific figures.

“We remain ready to support Tunisia by mobilising macro-financial assistance as soon as the necessary conditions are met,” von der Leyen said.

The conditions refer to ongoing talks between Tunis and the IMF around a 48-month loan agreement worth $1.9 billion, or €1.69 billion. The deal, as proposed by the IMF in October, introduces significant reforms, including on SMEs, taxation, state subsidies, transparency, governance and climate change, in exchange for the money.

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The conditions were later denounced by President Saied as “foreign diktats that will lead to more poverty,” thrusting the loan into bureaucratic limbo. Brussels, who, like Rome, had high hopes for the IMF process, believes the signing of the memorandum will inject the momentum that is missing to wrap up the negotiations. 

Only when the loan is set up and ready to go will the EU move forward with its own macro-financial assistance. The last time the bloc offered a programme of this kind to Tunisia was in May 2020, when the European Parliament and the Council approved a €600-million envelope in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau’s ‘Minister of Everything,’ Enters Race to Replace Him

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Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau’s ‘Minister of Everything,’ Enters Race to Replace Him

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former deputy prime minister, whose sudden resignation in December helped set the stage for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down, said on Friday that she was running to replace him.

She posted her announcement on X with a six-word sentence: “I’m running to fight for Canada.”

Ms. Freeland, 56, once a close ally of Mr. Trudeau who was often called his “minister of everything,” had served as deputy prime minister since 2019, and had long been viewed as a possible successor.

But the two had a bitter rift when Mr. Trudeau moved to demote her over a Zoom call in December, offering her a minister-without-portfolio role. Instead, she opted to resign and delivered a strong rebuke of Mr. Trudeau’s leadership as Canada prepares to deal with President-elect Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump has threatened to apply a tariff on Canadian exports to the United States.

Her stinging departure destabilized Mr. Trudeau’s shaky grip on power. Three weeks later, on Jan. 6, he announced he would step down as Liberal Party leader and as prime minister once a new leader was in place.

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Candidates for the leadership post will campaign ahead of a national vote among party members in March. The new Liberal Party leader will also become Prime Minister of Canada and lead the party in a general election expected to take place in the spring.

Ms. Freeland said she would officially launch her campaign in person on Sunday, which could take place in Toronto, the electoral district she represents in Parliament. She will face a stiff challenge persuading Canadians that she is the candidate best suited to take on the Conservative Party and its leader, Pierre Poilievre.

The Conservatives, who have a 25 percentage point lead over the Liberals in polls, have sought to portray Ms. Freeland as part of the problem given her once-close relationship with Mr. Trudeau and her key role in his governments since 2015, when he first became prime minister.

Mr. Trudeau’s popularity has nose dived in recent years as Canadians have become increasingly frustrated with persistently high cost-of-living on everything from housing to grocery bills.

Many Canadians have also started pushing back against the government’s immigration policy, which has resulted in 2.3 million people arriving in the country in the past two years. While the government said migrants were necessary to help fill gaps in low-skilled jobs, many Canadians say the new arrivals have contributed to rising housing costs and strains on the public health care system.

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Ms. Freeland had accused Mr. Trudeau of engaging in political gimmickry after her ministry clashed with his office about a temporary sales-tax break during the end-of-year holidays.

The government estimated that the tax break, which covered items like restaurant bills and some toys and clothing, would cost about 1.6 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.1 billion, which Ms. Freeland said that Canada could “ill afford” at a time when Mr. Trump is raising the specter of tariffs.

“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” Ms. Freeland said in her resignation letter. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”

Ms. Freeland was born and raised in Alberta and is of Ukrainian ancestry. She has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine on the global stage, denouncing Russia’s invasion.

She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and worked as a journalist and newsroom leader at a number of news organizations, including the Financial Times and Reuters, before joining the Liberal Party in 2013. She is married to a reporter on the Culture desk of The New York Times and has three children.

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During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ms. Freeland steered Canada’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico, portraying steely confidence during the tense talks with the odd moment of levity. (Ms. Freeland was photographed arriving in Washington in 2018 wearing a white T-shirt that read “Keep Calm and Negotiate NAFTA.”)

But she also angered Mr. Trump during the negotiations and his animosity has apparently not waned.

When Ms. Freeland resigned in December, Mr. Trump posted triumphantly: “Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!”

Ms. Freeland, in an opinion piece published on Friday, hinted that Canada would retaliate in “the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured.”

As finance minister, she spearheaded popular government programs to reduce the cost of day care for parents and to tackle childhood poverty.

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Her announcement on Friday marks the second entry of a top contender in the Liberal Party leadership race. She will face off against Mark Carney, a former head of the central banks in Canada and England, who declared he was running on Thursday.

Mr. Carney is close friends with Ms. Freeland and is the godfather to one of her three children. He was being recruited by Mr. Trudeau’s team to take Ms. Freeland’s place in the government in December, but declined the job.

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Pakistani court sentences ex-PM Imran Khan and his wife to 14 and 7 years in prison in graft case

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Pakistani court sentences ex-PM Imran Khan and his wife to 14 and 7 years in prison in graft case

A Pakistani court on Friday sentenced the country’s already-imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife to 14 and seven years in jail after finding them guilty of corruption, officials and his lawyer said.

It’s yet another blow for the former premier who has been behind the bars since 2023.

The couple are accused of accepting a gift of land from a real estate tycoon in exchange for laundered money when Khan was in power.

Prosecutors say the businessman, Malik Riaz, was then allowed by Khan to pay fines that were imposed on him in another case from the same laundered money of 190 million British pounds ($240 million) that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities in 2022 to deposit with the national exchequer.

6 DEAD AS PROTESTS ERUPT IN PAKISTAN OVER JAILED FORMER PRIME MINISTER IMRAN KHAN

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Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan addresses the media in Lahore, Pakistan.  (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary, File)

Khan has denied wrongdoing and insisted since his arrest in 2023 that all the charges against him are a plot by rivals to keep him from returning to office.

According to Khan’s legal team, Khan laughed and his wife, Bushra Bibi, smiled when judge Nasir Javed read the verdict.

Later, Khan and Bibi were taken into custody by prison officials after the announcement of the verdict, according to officials. She had earlier served a prison sentence in another graft case until she was freed on bail by a court in October. She recently led a rally to demand her husband’s release.

Later, a post from Khan’s account on the X platform urged his supporters not to panic over the verdict, under which the al-Qadir University built by his wife’s charity will also be taken over by authorities in the Punjab province.

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“I will never accept this dictatorship and I will stay in the prison cell for as long as I have to in the struggle against this dictatorship, but I will not compromise on my principles and the struggle for the true freedom of the nation,” Khan wrote. Khan’s family has said such posts are shared with his consent.

Faisal Chaudhry, a defense lawyer, said the court verdict could be challenged in the superior courts.

Shortly after the announcement of the verdict, lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party rallied outside the parliament in the capital, Islamabad, saying the former premier had been wrongly punished.

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Security standing guard in front of a vehicle.

Guards protecting a vehicle outside of a compound in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP Photo/W.K. Yousufzai)

“This is a bogus case, and we will approach an appeals court against this decision,” said Omar Ayub Khan, a senior party leader who is not related to the former premier.

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Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, had previously been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and seven years respectively. Under Pakistani law, he is to serve the terms concurrently — meaning, the length of the longest of the sentences.

Some of Khan’s supporters were also present outside the Adiala prison in the city of Rawalpindi, and they chanted slogans against the government, demanding the release of their leader.

On Thursday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told reporters in Islamabad that there was “irrefutable evidence” against Khan and his wife in the “mega corruption scandal.” Tarar said that Khan even did not tell his own Cabinet members about the money that was returned to Pakistan by Britain.

Tarar also claimed that Khan built a new sprawling house in the eastern city of Lahore after giving benefits to the business tycoon, and that he was unable to prove that from where he got the money from to build it.

The latest development came a day after Khan’s PTI party held a crucial round of talks with representatives of the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to demand the release of all political detainees, including Khan and other party leaders.

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Sharif became prime minister following the February 2024 election, which PTI claims was rigged.

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Commission claims slashing of foreign offices still under negotiation

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Commission claims slashing of foreign offices still under negotiation

The European Commission said that ‘reflections are ongoing’ over the downsizing of the international hubs under the department for international partnerships.

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The European Commission said that ‘reflections are ongoing’ over the downsizing of the international hubs under the department for international partnerships.

Plans to slash EU international partnerships from more than four in five hubs worldwide  revealed today by Euronews remain under negotiation, a Commission spokesperson said today.

Euronews reported that Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) presence in 100 delegations worldwide is set for reduction to 18 hubs on the basis of an internal planning document seen by this news service.

“Reflections are ongoing within the Commission and no decision has been taken [on the issue],” European Commission spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Anitta Hipper said when asked for details of the savings and staff moves that the plans entailed, declining to comment further on the document.

Hipper insisted that the EU presence on the ground in foreign offices would be maintained, and said that work is ongoing to see how effectively delegations can deliver on all EU policies, taking into account “budget realities and political priorities”.

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DG INTPA is planning slashing more than four in five of its hubs worldwide – reducing from around 100 delegations to 18 hubs – according to a document seen by Euronews. 

The DG will maintain 18 hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin American/Caribbean, according to the document, in strategic areas for the institution. You can see in this map where these hub offices will be located in detail:

“It is essential to move to portfolios that are more strategic and less fragmented and an optimised resource allocation across multiple countries,” the document said.

“The current INTPA operating model is based on the de-concentration process of 25 years ago, whereby INTPA staff are distributed across ‘cooperation sections’ within 100 Delegation worldwide,” the document said, adding: “This model no longer meets the needs for increased strategic focus and operation agility.”

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