On Sunday 16 July the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tunisia. Migration management is one of the five pillars of the agreement: the EU pledges to provide an additional EUR 100 million to Tunisia to strengthen border management, search and rescue operations at sea and 'anti-trafficking' measures in order to reduce the number of arrivals from the country. The securitarian rhetoric and the fight against the 'root causes of migration' waved by the Commission barely disguises its intention to block all forms of mobility from Tunisia to Europe, with the consequence of preventing those seeking protection from accessing the right to asylum.

Since the beginning of the year, 44,151 people have arrived in Italy from Tunisia, and only a fraction of these are Tunisian nationals: these are in fact, increasingly, people from West Africa who, in the North African country, are experiencing a situation of growing racism and violence, primarily at the hands of the institutions.

The signing of the agreement comes to validate the actions of the Tunisian authorities in recent months. Institutional racism, which also draws on theories of so-called ethnic substitution, has taken the form of serious violations of fundamental rights by the authorities:

• Violence, round-ups and summary arrests against the population of sub-Saharan origin, who have been subjected to vicious attacks, including by the population, which have gone unpunished.

• The illegal deportation of hundreds of people of sub-Saharan origin to the military border areas with Libya and Algeria, where з migrants are unreachable by civil society organisations and humanitarian organisations and where they also risk being subjected to further violence.

• Migrants' attempts to flee the country are hindered by a reinforced Tunisian Coast Guard, largely financed and equipped by Italy and the EU, which has increased its departure monitoring activities and interceptions at sea in recent months. There are numerous testimonies describing violent and dangerous ways in which the Coast Guard intercepted and brought ashore. Stealing engines from boats then left adrift, performing manoeuvres around the boats to cause waves and block their navigation, using tear gas during interceptions, are some of the practices that have in some cases resulted in the death of people on board.

The signing of the Memorandum with Tunisia not only ratifies the European Union's complicity with Tunisia's violent policies towards migrants, but also takes place in total disregard of the rules and principles that - at least on paper - bind the EU itself.

Under the conditions described so far, how can Tunisia be considered a safe country for third country nationals or even for its own citizens? It is not even clear how it can be considered a 'safe' place for the disembarkation of people rescued at sea, especially for citizens of other countries.

Organising, supporting and financing the systematic interception of people fleeing by sea - this is the clear objective of the reinforcement of the Tunisian Coast Guard established in the agreement - means forcing people stranded at sea to return to a country that, in addition to being plagued by racist violence and characterised by a heavily authoritarian turn of events, lacks a system capable of guaranteeing the protection of the rights and protection of foreign citizens present on its territory.

In this sense, we believe it is essential for international organisations such as IOM and UNHCR to distance themselves from this situation, so that they do not become an instrument of legitimisation and production, in the final analysis, of the violations that will result from the implementation of the Memorandum in a similar way to what is happening in Libya. Their presence and activity in Tunisia cannot be considered a real guarantee of protection for migrants, nor can it obviate the blatant violation of the right to asylum that the blocking policy implemented by the agreement represents. Mechanisms such as resettlement or humanitarian corridors have demonstrated their insufficiency in Libya. Moreover, they have entailed a shift from the level of rights to the level of granting pochз the possibility of leaving the territory of a state, including their own, to seek protection. Similarly, the instrument of voluntary repatriation, in the way it is implemented, presents profiles of serious illegitimacy and constitutes a form of disguised expulsion.

With due differences, the dynamic that is developing seems to have disturbing features in common with the Libyan model both in the way it is implemented and in its consequences. As for the former, this is yet another agreement between actors of international law that is dangerously removed from the rules of treaties and internal constitutional systems: no publicity during negotiations, no control, no ratification by representative bodies. As for the consequences, this agreement also has the effect of systemising indiscriminate violence as a means of deterring mobility, an increasing role for an unscrupulous Coast Guard, a systematic and progressive emptying of the right to asylum through humanitarian instruments that have no real impact in terms of rights.

In the face of this situation we ask

• The European Commission and the Italian Government to immediately stop the operation of the Memorandum and any funding aimed at strengthening the border control authorities;

• To the Tunisian government, to immediately suspend the forced transfers of migrants to the desert border areas on the border with Libya and Algeria, which expose people to inhumane and degrading treatment and represent attempts at collective expulsions prohibited by international law; to guarantee the right to escape by land and sea, and to avoid further endangering people's lives in violent interception operations of migrant boats;

• International organisations, primarily UNHCR and IOM, to suspend all forms of cooperation with the Tunisian government aimed at migration governance and to take a public stand against the Memorandum;

• To the African Commission to launch a commission of enquiry to verify the conditions and actions reported by migrants in the country;

• To the United Nations to organise a fact-finding mission to verify the violation of human rights;

• To the governments of the countries and all humanitarian actors including the international organisations that will meet in Rome on 23 July in the framework of the International Conference on Migration to stop any action aimed at blocking mobility and harmful as such to the right to asylum and any action to support instruments of control and deterrence of migrations involving serious violations of human rights;

• To the EU Parliament to claim the role of co-legislator recognised to it by the Treaties, in particular by Article 78 c. 2 (g) TFEU, and to exercise its power of control over the Memorandum and its implementation.

• To the Italian Parliament to strengthen its role of scrutiny and control over the increasing expenditure that Italy has allocated in recent years to strengthen Tunisian border control through the Return Policy Reward Fund.

SIGNATORY ORGANISATIONS

Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Économiques et Sociaux (FTDES)

Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF)

Association for Legal Studies on Immigration (ASGI)

Un Ponte Per (UPP)

Action Aid

ARCI

EuroMed Rights

Watch the Med - Alarm Phone