The EU’s woeful response to the collapse of Tunisian democracy

For a political actor that ‘believes in the universal value of democracy and the rights of the individual,’ as the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen put it in her state of the union speech last September, the EU is becoming strikingly inured to threats to democracy in its immediate neighbourhood.

Tunisia has been the lone success story of the Arab spring. It has delicately nurtured a parliamentary democracy which has managed to reconcile secular constitutionalism with conservative, Islamist political impulses – until last week, that is. Assisted by the military, the country’s President Kais Saied has suspended Tunisia’s parliament for 30 days, dismissed the prime minister, and has started arresting opposition figures.

The EU’s response? A toothless, five-sentence statement about the importance of ‘preserving democracy and stability in the country.’ The statement did not give any indication of what the bloc would do next if the potential coup was not reversed.

‘We cannot go any further at this juncture,’ the spokesperson for the EU’s high representative for foreign policy explained.