Publish Date : 05-Mar-2014
Tunisia and the EU today formally established a Mobility Partnership. A joint declaration was signed by Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Mr Tahar Cherif, Tunisian Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union, and the Ministers of the ten EU Member States involved in the Partnership: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
'This Mobility Partnership aims to facilitate the movement of people between the EU and Tunisia and to promote a common and responsible management of existing migratory flows, including by simplifying procedures for granting visas. The EU will also support the Tunisian authorities in their efforts in the field of asylum, with a view to establishing a system for protecting refugees and asylum-seekers. Through this Partnership, the EU and Tunisia will not only develop their bilateral relations in the fields of migration, mobility and security, but will cooperate together to better meet the challenges faced in the Mediterranean', said Ms Malmström in the margins of the Home Affairs Council in Brussels.
One of the initiatives that will come out of the implementation of the Partnership is that the EU and Tunisia will begin negotiations on an agreement to facilitate the procedures for issuing visas.
One objective of the Partnership is to improve the information available to qualified Tunisian citizens on employment, education and training opportunities available in the EU and also to make mutual recognition of professional and university qualifications easier.
The EU and Tunisia are committed to encouraging better integration of Tunisian nationals legally living in the EU and of migrants legally living in Tunisia. They have also made a series of commitments to maximise the impact of migration on development, especially by strengthening the role of Tunisian communities abroad involved in the development of Tunisia.
On the subject of irregular migration, besides opening negotiations on an agreement for the readmission of irregular migrants, the EU and Tunisia also promised better cooperation to prevent human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants and to improve the security of identity and travel documents and border management.
As part of this Partnership, Tunisia and the EU will also work together to support the establishment and strengthening of the Tunisian authorities that will be responsible for identifying those migrants on their territory who are eligible for international protection, processing their asylum applications, applying the principle of 'non-refoulement' to them and providing them with lasting protection arrangements.
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