DOMESTIC NEWS

• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni returned to Tunis alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The trio met with President Kaïs Saïed and a host of other ministers (though not, apparently, Prime Minister Najla Bouden) and agreed to a “comprehensive partnership package.”
• As part of the package, von der Leyen said, the EU is ready to mobilize up to 900 million euros ($972 million) in macro-financial assistance for Tunisia “as soon as the necessary agreement is found,” referring to Tunisia’s pending $1.9 billion IMF deal. “As an immediate step,” she added, “we could provide up to 150 million euros [$162 million] in budget support right now.”
• Von der Leyen also noted that the EU will provide Tunisia with another 105 million euros ($113 million) this year for “border management, but also search and rescue and anti-smuggling and return.” Days earlier, EU member states had agreed to radical changes to the bloc’s asylum policy that will allow them to deport migrants to countries such as Tunisia if the receiving countries agree. Asked whether the Tunisia proposal will allow Europe to send non-Tunisian citizens to the country, von der Leyen said that specifics will be unveiled in a memorandum of understanding later this month.
• The Tunisia-EU agreement is based on five pillars; in addition to migration, they include economic development, investment and trade, energy, and people-to-people contacts. Notably absent is political reform, and the EU leaders’ only reference to Tunisia’s deepening authoritarianism was von der Leyen’s acknowledgment that Tunisia’s “journey for democracy” has been a “long, sometimes difficult road.”

• Saïed told the European leaders that “solutions can never be presented in the form of diktats,” and he warned again that the IMF’s “traditional approaches” will “only worsen the social situation, causing damage to Tunisia and to the whole region.”
• He stated, “The IMF must review its proposals and then a solution can be reached.” He has consistently voiced his disapproval of the deal reached between IMF and Tunisian officials, particularly proposed subsidy cuts. A Tunisian official revealed today that the government is preparing an alternative proposal for the IMF that would leave subsidies intact.
• As for migration, Saïed stated, “The solution that some secretly call for is to settle migrants in exchange for money, a solution that is neither humane nor acceptable.” 
• The day before, during an unannounced visit to the migrant hub of Sfax, Saïed had stressed Tunisia’s refusal to “play the role of guardian for other countries.” He decried the “inhumane” conditions of migrants in the city, cutting a wildly different figure from the president who had, less than four months earlier, blamed “hordes of irregular migrants” for violence and crime in Tunisia.

• “For years, Europe has not seen Tunisia as a country in need of cooperation based on genuine democracy guaranteeing rights and freedoms, but simply as an advanced border point requiring more equipment to contain migration, with the aim that no one can reach Europe even if it means death,” the FTDES wrote. European leaders, the organization added, are seeking to “take advantage of [Tunisia’s] political, economic and social fragility in order to increase cooperation in border export policies.”
• Others criticized the disregard for Tunisia's democracy or political prisoners. The International Commission of Jurists’ Saïd Benarbia, for instance, commented that “European interests in stopping migration are cynically pursued at the detriment of Tunisians’ aspirations to a democratic, prosperous country.” 
• “The Europeans have to understand, too, that when they support a dictatorship like Kaïs Saïed’s, they are not helping us find a solution for the medium and long term,” added former MP Sofiane Makhloufi. “The question is not whether this year or the next year will we have 15,000 or 20,000 crossings—the problem is really in 10, 15, 20, 30 years’ time.”

• Sahbi Atig, who formerly headed the party’s parliamentary bloc, has been on hunger strike for approximately one month. “He lost 17 kilograms (37 pounds), his heart rhythm is weak, and he can hardly speak,” his wife said after visiting him in prison recently, adding that he spent several days in intensive care at a hospital last week. Atig was arrested on May 6 for alleged money laundering and false testimony.
• Former MP Ahmed Mechergui began a hunger strike on June 11, while another senior party figure, Youssef Nouri, has been on one since April 25. According to Ennahda, neither has been interrogated or charged since they were arrested in mid-April. “Forcing detainees to go on hunger strikes as a last resort to defend themselves is a dangerous policy and a great risk to the lives of Tunisians whose only fault is their disagreement with the ruling authorities,” the party wrote.
• Ennahda’s president, Rached Ghannouchi, has also been detained since mid-April and was sentenced to one year in prison the next month.
• Separately, Elyes Chaouachi, the son of imprisoned former Attayar (Democratic Current) Secretary-General Ghazi Chaouachi, revealed that he was summoned for questioning by the Ministry of Interior’s cybercrime unit. The summons came shortly after he wrote on social media that authorities have not allowed his family to visit his father in prison despite authorization from the investigating judge.

FROM WASHINGTON

• Blinken said afterward that the United States “would welcome the Tunisian government presenting a revised reform plan to the IMF and for the IMF to be able to act on the plan presented. . . . It's clear that Tunisia needs additional assistance if it is going to avoid falling off the proverbial economic cliff.”
• Tajani also spoke about Tunisia with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. In the meantime, Fitch Ratings downgraded the country's rating deeper into junk territory to reflect “uncertainty around Tunisia’s ability to mobilize sufficient funding to meet its large financing requirement.”

ON OUR RADAR

• June 8 - Four Tunisian soldiers died in a helicopter crash that President Kaïs Saïed attributed to aging military equipment. (Barron’s)

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