Migration
Three years after the EU and Tunisia signed their migration memorandum, 105 million euros of European money has been mobilised for Tunisian border control, arrivals to Italy are down 97 percent on the European Commission's own measure, and 46 rights organisations say what that bought is violent interceptions, arbitrary detention, torture and collective expulsions.
The European Union and Tunisia signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Tunis on 16 July 2023, presented as a partnership on the economy, energy and migration. Human Rights Watch says the European Commission signed it over the European Parliament's objections, without a prior human rights assessment, clear and transparent benchmarks or independent monitoring. In 2024 the European Ombudsman and the European Court of Auditors questioned whether the funding meets the EU's legal obligations. EU leaders now call the text a blueprint for further deals in the region.
Under the memorandum's migration component the EU and its member states had mobilised 105 million euros for interceptions at sea and border control by July 2026, on the 46 organisations' count. At least 65 million of that had been allocated by February 2024 to train and equip the Tunisian Coast Guard and the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre. Kapitalis says the package covered vessels, vehicles, thermal cameras, operational equipment and training for the National Guard and the navy, and reports three Italian-built rescue boats delivered in July 2026.
Ursula von der Leyen put irregular arrivals to Italy down 97 percent since 2023, in a June 2026 letter to member states that Amnesty says was leaked. Amnesty's account of the letter gives no departure countries and no end date. That 97 percent cannot be lined up with UNHCR's own count of sea arrivals to Italy, which went from 157,651 in 2023 to 66,316 in 2025. Euronews, citing the IOM, reported at least 990 deaths in the Mediterranean to 7 April 2026, about 765 of them on the central route.
On the third anniversary, 46 rights and humanitarian organisations asked the EU to suspend that support. Their statement puts interceptions by the Tunisian Coast Guard above 140,000 by the end of 2024, adding figures from the IOM and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES). The same day, Human Rights Watch published the account of a Cameroonian woman it calls Christine. She says officers beat the group and took money and phones at a port near Sfax, and that one of them raped her at the Algerian border.
Interior minister Khaled Nouri said in July 2025 that Tunisia would never be a land of settlement or passage for irregular African migrants, nor guard anyone else's borders. Tunisia works with the IOM on returns all the same: 22,377 since 2022, 2,103 in 2026 to 18 May. The EU listed Tunisia as a safe country of origin in February 2026, and Italy proposed EU-funded return centres abroad on 2 August, with Tunisia on a preliminary list of eleven hosts. EU interior ministers agreed on 4 August to speed up returns.
”Given what is happening here, it is rather a forced return”
The numbers
What the comparison shows
Where they agree
The EU and its member states put money and equipment into Tunisian maritime and border capability under the 2023 memorandum, the Tunisian Coast Guard now intercepts people at sea on a large scale, and irregular arrivals in Italy have fallen steeply. Ursula von der Leyen put that fall at 97 percent since 2023 in a leaked June 2026 letter and presents it as the arrangement working. Amnesty International does not contest that departures from Tunisia dropped. Both the EU ambassador in Tunis and the Tunisian interior minister reject the description of Tunisia as Europe's border guard.
Where they split
The parties split on what the fall in arrivals means and who bears its consequences. The 46 organisations, among them Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, call it a transfer of harm rather than a success: EU money has funded interceptions that end in beatings, confiscated money and phones, arbitrary detention and expulsion to desert borders, and Tunisia cannot be called safe. Perrone rejects the premise. Speaking in May 2026, three months before the Italian proposal became public, he said the EU had never asked Tunisia to police migration on Europe's behalf and that return centres there were not under discussion. Khaled Nouri puts the Tunisian government in a third position: it will not guard anyone else's borders, and it will not be a country of settlement or of transit either. Ben Amor argues about causes rather than about money, and locates the driver in hostile political speech inside Tunisia. Tohbi disputes the word voluntary, speaking for people inside the returns programme.
What nobody is saying
Only the European Commission and the Tunisian authorities could open the arrangement to independent checking, and neither has. The Commission told Amnesty in April 2026 that it had finalised an internal procedure for human rights complaints, then published nothing about how it works or what it has found. Tunisia stopped publishing interception data in June 2024, on FTDES's account, so the most recent total anyone cites, more than 140,000, is an estimate that stops at the end of 2024. The rights organisations demand clear benchmarks and real consequences without saying who would measure them against what data. So the central factual question, how many people are intercepted and what becomes of them, has no source that both sides would accept.
Who says what
Mager calls for the EU to speak publicly against the violations and to place human rights rather than migration control at the centre of the relationship, with defined benchmarks and consequences if abuses continue.
”The EU cannot pretend to champion human rights while deepening cooperation with Tunisian authorities responsible for crushing dissent and abusing migrants”The EU cannot pretend to champion human rights while deepening cooperation with Tunisian authorities responsible for crushing dissent and abusing migrants
Morayef's argument is about what the EU knew when it signed. On that basis Amnesty rejects the designation of Tunisia as safe, pointing to the scale of ongoing violations and the absence of any functioning route to asylum protection.
”Despite well-documented evidence of human rights violations against refugees and migrants in Tunisia, the EU looked the other way and signed the MoU without effective human rights safeguards.”Despite well-documented evidence of human rights violations against refugees and migrants in Tunisia, the EU looked the other way and signed the MoU without effective human rights safeguards.
Ben Amor puts the emphasis somewhere the European organisations largely do not: on Tunisian domestic politics. He argues that hostile political speech and viral social media content have built a climate in which migrants become the scapegoats of a society already in crisis. He adds that several recent legislative moves would tighten rather than loosen access to Tunisian nationality.
”Ces discours participent à la construction d'un climat social anxiogène dans lequel les migrants deviennent des boucs émissaires”These discourses contribute to building an anxiety-inducing social climate in which migrants become scapegoats
Tohbi speaks for a migrant community directly affected by the returns programme and rejects the official description of it. He told Nawaat that his community is in the middle of a crisis, that people are afraid for their safety and are therefore forced to leave, and that what is happening amounts to an organised forced return rather than a voluntary one. He also says some of those flown to Ivory Coast are not Ivorian.
”Au vu de ce qui se passe ici, il s'agit plutôt d'un retour forcé”Given what is happening here, it is rather a forced return
Perrone is the institutional voice defending the arrangement, and he defends it by denying the premise of the criticism. Speaking at a Europe Day event in Tunis in May 2026, he rejected the idea that the EU wants Tunisia to manage irregular migration on Europe's behalf or to play a substitute or outsourced role, and denied that return centres in Tunisia were being created, saying the European discussion concerned the designation of safe countries. He framed the cooperation as resting on a convergence of interests, including action against traffickers and the protection of Tunisia's national interests, within a wider EU project portfolio in Tunisia of around 1.35 billion euros.
Nouri states the Tunisian government's standing refusal of the role that both the EU's critics and its proposals assume Tunisia will play. He rejects Tunisia becoming either a country of settlement or a country of transit for irregular African migrants, and refuses explicitly the role of guarding other states' borders, while describing irregular migration as a complex and multidimensional file. He also set out what the ministry is doing: expanding the maritime fleet, adding drones and thermal cameras, and cooperating with EU states and the IOM. That position sits against the rights organisations, who argue Tunisia is already performing the border guard role in practice, and against the Italian proposal that lists Tunisia as a candidate host.
”la Tunisie ne sera jamais une terre d'installation ni de passage pour les migrants africains en situation irrégulière, et ne sera pas non plus le gardien des frontières d'autrui”Tunisia will never be a land of settlement or of passage for African migrants in an irregular situation, nor will it be the guardian of other people's borders
Our coverage
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- Search continues off Zarzis after migrant boat sinks, about 6 still missingMonday, 24 August 2026
- Zarzis toll rises to 12 dead as Ben Guerdane protests for second nightMonday, 24 August 2026
- Two dead, twelve missing after migrant boat sinks off ZarzisSunday, 23 August 2026
- Zarzis boat sinking: death toll rises to eight, six still missingSunday, 23 August 2026
- Voluntary migrant returns from Tunisia more than double in three monthsSaturday, 22 August 2026
- Migrant boat sinks off Zarzis, prosecutor opens inquirySaturday, 22 August 2026
- A handbook is to steer voluntary return for migrants in TunisiaMonday, 10 August 2026
- Libya is putting optical and thermal cameras along 200 km of its border with TunisiaSaturday, 8 August 2026
- Hundreds of Tunisians stranded at the Ras Jedir crossing with LibyaThursday, 6 August 2026
- Tunisia appears on Italy's preliminary list of countries that could host EU-funded return centresMonday, 3 August 2026
- US makes visa bonds permanent, and Tunisians can be asked for up to 20,000 dollarsMonday, 3 August 2026
- Three Italian-built sea rescue vessels delivered to TunisiaSunday, 19 July 2026
- HRW publishes a Cameroonian woman's account of abuse after a coast guard interceptionSaturday, 18 July 2026
- Three years on, 46 rights groups say the EU–Tunisia migration deal has normalised abusesFriday, 17 July 2026
- Forty-six rights groups tell the EU to stop funding Tunisian migration control, three years after the memorandumThursday, 16 July 2026