BRUSSELS: The EU ombudsman demanded Friday that Brussels explain how it will ensure that its pact with Tunisia to curb migration will not breach human rights standards.
The Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, is an independent overseer employed to handle complaints about the work of EU institutions and agencies and to investigate alleged administrative failures.
“Where fundamental rights are not respected, there cannot be good administration,” she said.
In July, the European Union signed a deal to provide financial assistance and practical cooperation to Tunisia — the main launchpad for undocumented migrants making the dangerous sea crossing to Italy.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte hailed the deal as a way to fight “networks of smugglers and traffickers.”
But international human rights organizations and some MEPs have criticized Brussels for forming an anti-migration partnership with President Kais Saied’s increasingly authoritarian regime.
In recent months hundreds of migrants arrested in Tunisia have allegedly been dropped off in the desert near the Libya border and left to fend for themselves.
Against this backdrop, O’Reilly said von der Leyen’s European Commission has some explaining to do.
“Did the Commission carry out a human rights impact assessment of the MoU before its conclusion and consider possible measures to mitigate risks of human rights violations,” the ombudsman asked, in a letter to von der Leyen.
“If yes, could the Commission make this impact assessment public, along with the mitigating measures? If not, please set out the rationale for this.”
O’Reilly noted that she had raised these concerns when Brussels signed a similar pact with Turkiye, and warned the EU regulations stipulate that any funding provided to partner countries must not be spent in ways that breach migrants’ human rights.
“How does the Commission plan to ensure that actions undertaken by Tunisia under the Migration and mobility pillar of the MoU and financed using EU funds will comply with the applicable human rights standards?” she asked.
Earlier this week, the European Commission was forced to defend the Tunisian migration pact in parliament, where it has come under fire from MEPs from the left and the Greens.
“This is an investment in our shared prosperity, stability, and in the future generations,” commissioner Oliver Varhelyi told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
He said it reinforced cooperation that has already seen the Tunisian coast guard intercept nearly 24,000 boats headed for Europe this year, compared with some 9,000 last year.
But the row flared up again on Thursday when Tunisia barred entry to a fact-finding delegation from the European Parliament, following a non-binding resolution condemning the government’s “authoritarian drift.”
EU faces human rights questions over Tunisia migration pact
https://arab.news/zncc5
EU faces human rights questions over Tunisia migration pact
- EU signed a deal to provide financial assistance and practical cooperation to Tunisia — the main launchpad for undocumented migrants
Top entertainment figures back under-fire UN Palestinians expert
PARIS: Over a hundred top figures from the world of entertainment signed an open letter Saturday in support of UN Palestinian human rights expert Francesca Albanese who faces calls to resign over comments about the war in Gaza.
France and Germany have called for Albanese to step down over remarks last weekend in which she referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticizing “most of the world” and the media for enabling Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics and Israel have accused the UN Special Rapporteur of referring to Israel as a “common enemy,” while Albanese has denounced this as a “manipulation” and “completely false.”
In a letter organized by the Artists for Palestine group and shared with AFP, over a 100 cultural figures backed her, including actors Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem, Nobel-winning author Annie Ernaux and British musician Annie Lennox.
The signatories “offer our full support to Francesca Albanese, a defender of human rights and therefore also of the Palestinian people’s right to exist,” the letter says.
“There are infinitely more of us, in every corner of the Earth, who want force no longer to be the law. Who know what the word ‘law’ truly means,” it concludes.
Published in French on the website of Artists for Palestine, it also reproduces the full remarks by Albanese who was speaking via videoconference at a forum last Saturday organized by the Al Jazeera TV network.
Other celebrities to offer support for her include actresses Rosa Salazar and Asia Argento, Oscar-nominated film directors Yorgos Lanthimos and Kaouther Ben Hania, Latin music star Residente, and photographer Nan Goldin.
A group of French MPs sent a letter to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot on Tuesday denouncing Albanese’s remarks as “antisemitic.”
Barrot called for her to step down a day later, saying that France “unreservedly condemns the outrageous and reprehensible remarks.”
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Thursday said her position was “untenable.”
‘Shame of our time’
Albanese is one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s more-than-two-year bombardment of Gaza which has resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 people and the destruction of most of the territory’s infrastructure.
She has called it the “the shame of our time” and says she always asks prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers the same question: “How do you sleep? When will you act?“
The Italian-born legal expert, who began her unpaid role in 2022, was targeted with sanctions by the Trump administration in July last year over what it called her “biased and malicious” work.
UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN rights council, but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres distanced himself from Albanese on Thursday when his spokesman said “we don’t agree with much of what she says.”
“We wouldn’t use the language that she’s using in describing the situation,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric added.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people.
On that day, militants abducted 251 people into Gaza.
The open letter and signatories can be seen here.
