On 16 July 2023, the EU and Tunisia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a new strategic partnership whose main focus is migration. The MoU is a response to the increase in migratory arrivals in Italy since 2022, which peaked in early summer 2023. The policy brief looks at what has led to the ‘new crisis’ in the Central Mediterranean. It examines the factors that shape migration from Tunisia, which have been in place for some time, and suggests that a variation on recent events—albeit on a different scale—has taken place before, accompanied by somewhat similar variations on Europe’s current responses.
Author: Angeliki Dimitriadi, Senior Research Fellow, Head of the Migration Programme, ELIAMEP.
This text has originally been published on the ELIAMEP website.