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TunisiaTunisia 2020: EU provides EUR 150 million to support recovery in Tunisia
November 30, 2016
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Exactly two month after issuing the communication on ‘Strengthening EU support for Tunisia’, the EU committed yesterday, in the framework of the Tunisia 2020 conference, to grant over EUR 150 million to support Tunisia. This support will focus on three main areas: supporting recovery, supporting the development of regions, and maximising the potential for growth and job creation while serving the environment.
EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, who was present at the event, said: “the main message that I convey from Brussels is that we believe in Tunisia and we are determined to help Tunisia to succeed in its political and economic transition.”
The recovery support programme (PARV), the fifth phase of which was signed yesterday, devotes EUR 70 million to reforms designed to make the State more efficient in managing its public finances. The programme will also support the tourism sector, hit hard by last year’s attacks.
The programme “Focus on Decentralisation and Integrated Territorial Development” (CAP2D), which dedicates EUR 43 million to supporting Tunisian regions and municipalities, combines territorial planning in a broad sense, decentralisation and local democracy. Recognising that the needs of local authorities are sometimes very concrete, the EU has decided to allocate EUR 3 million of the CAP2D programme to the Trust Fund set up by the World Bank to ensure the supply of equipment to municipalities.
EU action also involves measures taken in close partnership with the major European financial institutions i.e. the European Investment Bank (EIB), the German KfW, the French Development Agency (AFD) as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Through the Neighborhood Investment Facility (NIF), it is possible to combine EU grants with loans granted by these entities to generate projects that directly benefit Tunisia.
The programmes signed by Commissioner Hahn with the representatives of these institutions during the conference are oriented in two main directions:
– Economy and growth for job creation: whether through the EBRD’s “Regional Support Programme for Financial Inclusion” and “Support Programme for Trade and Competitiveness” or the EIB-managed “Facility for Venture Capital”, EUR 92 million will strengthen the Tunisian economy and its actors, including a EUR 25 million grant from the EU via NIF;
– The fulfillment of Tunisia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change: through a EUR 16 million financial support for the creation of the first solar power plant in Tunisia to be located in Tozeur (southern Tunisia), to be implemented by the KfW and which includes a EUR 1.5 million grant from the EU via NIF. The EU will also provide a EUR 10.75 million grant to the EUR 140 million project to build water treatment plants, thereby contributing to the regional de-pollution effort in the Mediterranean.
Further financial support will follow as the EU will grant EUR 300 million annually between 2017 and 2020 and will mobilize EUR 800 million in loans in partnership with the European financial institutions.
Read more
Commissioner Hahn speech
Relations between the EU and Tunisia – Factsheet
EU Delegation to Tunisia – website and Facebook page
Photo: © European Union, 2016
Countries covered:
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Tunisia
