Mediaboss Marketing

Tunisian President Kas Saed has warned that Europe can only stem the flow of migrants reaching its shores by helping to improve conditions in the countries that they are leaving.

Saed told Euronews that an approach to migration that only deals with security - preventing people from reaching Europe - would ultimately fail to solve what is a global crisis.

On the sidelines of meetings in Brussels, Euronews sat down with Saed to discuss the partnership that his country has with the EU to slow the flow of migrants to Europe and other issues.

Kas Saed: "I have talked about this topic on several occasions, about illegal or legal migration.

Many people talk about a solution to solve the problem based on security. But it's very clear that this option is not enough to curb the migratory wave.

If those illegal immigrants had fulfilled their ambition to live well and to make their dreams come true, and had the same opportunities European citizens have in their countries, the immigration issue would not be raised. It is better to find out about the real reasons for immigration rather than analysing the phenomena.

Many illegal immigrants who reach Europe from Tunisia and North Africa are exploited by criminal organisations: they are forced to do illegal work, which violates their rights as refugees.

We must also talk about the legal migration of academics and other high-skilled workers. For example, in the past year only, nearly five hundred doctors went to Europe."

"To fight these networks in Tunisia, but also in Europe, you need to look at those who welcome them. Who receives them when they turn up to work in the fields or in factories, or even on the black market? Who exploits them and who benefits from it? It's here in Europe.

These migrants are forced to work illegally, so it is absolutely necessary to combat human trafficking networks within Europe as well. There will be no security and no peace here unless we eliminate the causes that led to this illegal migration. Some illegal immigrants were forced to do so because they had lost all kind of hope, they had no dream."

"There are agreements with a number of European countries and with the EU regarding this matter of creating jobs for youth. I told them: 'We should find a new mechanism in order to build justice within the world'."

"Yes, they listened to us. I'm talking here about operational solutions. In Tunisia, we tried different action plans for vaccination, but there are still insufficient and ineffective.

In recent days, we've had alarming signals coming from different regions in Tunisia that were suffering from oxygen shortage and lack of medical supplies, but we've managed to get the situation under control. These catastrophic situations can be treated with a global approach to assistance, not just within one country."

"Tunisia is not a country targeted by terrorism on a daily basis, ours is a safe country. We protect our society by establishing a platform of cultural values aimed at protecting citizens from becoming involved in terrorism -- which mainly threatens people who are victims of a certain intellectual precariousness."

"We respect every country in its freedom to take decisions, we do not want to interfere in other states' decisions at all. They are free, but we are also free to take our own decisions."

Read more:
Europe must tackle the real causes of migration, says Tunisia's president - Euronews