11/16/2023 6:01 pm (current 11/16/2023 6:01 pm)
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner visits his Tunisian counterpart ©APA/JAKOB ILLE
The migration pact that the EU and Tunisia concluded in the summer is “slowly starting to take effect”, said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) on Thursday during a three-day trip to the northern country. from Africa. According to Frontex, 1,652 people left Tunisia for Europe in October, compared to 16,396 in September. Austria wants to do its part by training border guards.
However, the start of the migration agreement was anything but smooth. Several EU institutions criticized the deal, which stipulated that the EU Commission could pay financial aid worth up to 900 million euros to the hardest-hit country economically. Tunis itself returned 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.”
Shortly after the agreement was announced, there was a kind of “final panic”, but the agreement is now giving its first results. “It is important that we support Tunisia in protecting its borders; they can count on our support.” A conversation between Feki and Karner was also on the agenda on Thursday. This occurred “on an equal footing” and cooperation with the third country was going well, the Austrian Interior Minister emphasized. “I’ve always said: continental security rather than maritime rescue. People shouldn’t even make the dangerous journey across the sea.”
Last year, Austria recorded 13,126 asylum requests from Tunisia. Following the abolition of visa freedom in November 2022, this number compares with 348 this year. The bilateral meeting also included the signing of a humanitarian aid agreement. “The objective is to provide help quickly and without bureaucracy”, emphasized Karner. Countries like Germany, Italy and Spain already have agreements like this.
The focus of the trip will be the opening of a training center for border guards on Friday. Austria and Denmark jointly financed the center, which has capacity for 200 future border guards. Austria contributed almost one million euros. Karner and Danish Migration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek will present their certificates to the first 15 graduates tomorrow. “We think the same with the Danes, despite the different party families,” Karner said of his Social Democratic counterpart. Karner explains why Austria is going its own way despite the agreement with the EU: “The EU has a global responsibility, but each Member State also has a responsibility. We want to send a signal here and move the issue forward .”
The project was coordinated by the Vienna-based Center for Migration Policy (ICMPD) under the direction of former ÖVP Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger. The next step is to expand the sanitary facilities and a sports field; the Netherlands also announced that it will join the project. “We don’t give you money (ICMPD, note) and say ‘do something with it’, this is a concrete task of the project”, assured Karner. Several modules are part of the training, including one on how human rights are observed.