By Yussuf Abdel Hadi
Tunisia is not just another third country for the European Union – it is a geopolitically significant partner on the southern Mediterranean border. The EU’s cooperation with President Kaïs Saïed, agreed in 2023 and valued at up to €900 million, serves multiple purposes: stabilizing the country’s fragile public finances, modernizing its ailing economy – and, most importantly for Brussels, curbing irregular migration across the Mediterranean. In return, the EU expects Tunis to tighten control of its coastline and effectively act as a forward border guard for Europe.
Now, the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen is proposing to designate Tunisia as a safe country of origin under European asylum law. This legal classification carries far-reaching implications: it means that asylum seekers from Tunisia will generally see their applications rejected as “manifestly unfounded” – on the assumption that their country does not practice systematic political persecution. The designation enables accelerated procedures and deportations, aligning with the interests of EU member states pursuing more restrictive migration policies.
But whether Tunisia under President Saïed actually meets these criteria is highly controversial. Since Saïed’s power grab in 2021 – when he suspended parliament and began ruling by decree – signs of authoritarian regression have multiplied. Critical voices from politics, the media, and civil society face increasing repression. Opposition figures are detained without trial, journalists are prosecuted for alleged threats to state security, and the judiciary has effectively been brought under executive control. Human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeatedly warned of the erosion of rule-of-law principles and the creeping dismantling of democratic safeguards.
Against this backdrop, the proposal to classify Tunisia as a safe country of origin appears not only legally questionable but also politically explosive. It would amount to the EU formally endorsing a state with growing authoritarian tendencies as “unproblematic” – despite clear warnings from international observers and the obvious dangers faced by dissidents, activists, and journalists in Tunisia today.
At the same time, a politically charged mass trial was underway in Tunis: around 40 individuals stood accused of conspiring against state security. Observers widely regarded the proceedings as a show trial orchestrated by a president bent on eliminating critics and consolidating power. The defendants represented a broad cross-section of society: liberal and Islamist opposition figures, businesspeople, journalists, and members of civil society. Among them were also prominent feminists. The alleged ringleader was a businessman with past ties to the regime of ousted dictator Ben Ali – a symbol of just how arbitrary and selective Saïed’s repression has become.
Even French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy appeared on the list of accused. According to media reports, he was charged – in absentia – with “Freemasonry” and alleged ties to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Tunisian authorities claimed he had attempted to undermine the state. The public was largely excluded from the proceedings, and according to reports, the indictment was never formally read out. In a rushed trial, the court issued sentences ranging from 13 to 66 years in prison. Lévy was sentenced to 33 years – in absentia, of course. The families of the accused, their legal representatives, and civil society organizations strongly condemned the verdicts. Terms like “madness,” “political verdict,” and “judicial assassination” circulated. Human rights activists described the trial as “an insult to reason, a slap in the face of justice, and spit in the face of the rule of law.”
One of the country’s most prominent defense lawyers remarked that it was not the defendants who “felt the knife at their throat” during the trial, but the presiding judge himself. He accompanied the comment with a throat-cutting gesture – and was promptly arrested on charges of “terrorist activities.” Fellow lawyers insisted the gesture was not meant as a threat but as a metaphor: President Saïed, they said, had forced the court’s hand by issuing vague charges and demanding harsh sentences.
The trial is emblematic of the increasingly repressive climate in Tunisia. Saïed, first elected president in 2019, suspended parliament on July 25, 2021, dismissed the sitting prime minister, and installed a new government. He later brought the judiciary under his control. In July 2022, he used a referendum to legitimize his expanded powers. Opposition figures now claim that Tunisia has reverted to the same conditions that prevailed under dictator Ben Ali, who was ousted during the Arab Spring in 2011.
Within the EU, the Tunisia deal was seen as a model for similar agreements later signed with Mauritania, Egypt, and Lebanon. The arrangement was brokered by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in close coordination with Ursula von der Leyen. And from the EU’s perspective, it seems to have paid off: the number of migrants departing from Tunisia across the Mediterranean to Italy has sharply declined – including both people from sub-Saharan Africa transiting through Tunisia and Tunisian nationals themselves.
EU member states and the European Parliament must now decide whether to adopt the Commission’s proposal to include Tunisia in the bloc’s first-ever unified list of safe countries of origin. Tunisia would thus be placed in the same category as official EU accession candidates (with the exception of Ukraine), as well as countries like Kosovo, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, and Morocco. Ten EU member states have already made this designation at the national level. This means that asylum applications from Tunisian nationals are typically handled in fast-track procedures. In 2024, the EU-wide recognition rate stood at just four percent.
The Commission acknowledged that there is repression in Tunisia, targeting both political opponents and sexual minorities. But it concluded that this does not amount to systematic persecution. Therefore, it argued, “it can be concluded that the Tunisian population is generally not at risk of persecution or serious harm.” The Commission also emphasized that every asylum application would continue to be examined on an individual basis.
