2023-11-16 17:11:46
The migration pact that the EU and Tunisia concluded in the summer is “slowly starting to take effect,” said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) today during a three-day trip to the North African country. Austria will help train border guards.
According to Frontex, 1,652 people left Tunisia for Europe in October; in September there were 16,396, said Karner. In the previous year, Austria counted 13,126 asylum applications from Tunisia. After the visa exemption was abolished in November 2022, this year there are 348.
The start didn’t go smoothly
The start of the migration deal did not go smoothly. Several EU institutions had criticized the agreement, which stipulated that the EU Commission could pay out financial aid worth up to 900 million euros to the economically hard-hit country.
Tunis itself paid back 60 million euros in budget aid in October, and Interior Minister Kamel Feki said: “Under no circumstances can Tunisia serve as a border guard for other countries.”
Karner is seeing initial results
Shortly after the agreement was announced, there was a kind of “final panic”, but the agreement is now showing its first results, emphasized Karner. “It is important that we support Tunisia when it comes to border protection; they can count on our support.” The cooperation with Tunisia is going well, said Karner after a meeting with Feki.
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