Challenge: Make Tunisia a EU-Member

What it says on the tin! Make Tunisia a member of the EU by preset times. Bonus points for adding Libya.
 
What it says on the tin! Make Tunisia a member of the EU by preset times. Bonus points for adding Libya.

You need to get rid of Bourguiba much much faster, and even then it will be extremely difficult. If Ben Ali loses control of his transition of power immediately after he take power in a coup in 1987, and a moderate former member of the regime takes power and liberalizes the political system, there is a chance that they will be a candidate by the early 2000s.

The other option of course is to have them fully integrated into France as a department (a la Algeria) and have the region become part of the *EU as part of France.
 
Not Difficult to Declare but to Implement

If there was somehow a bilateral agreement that made members of the Union for the Mediterranean apply bi-laterally to become members of the European Union rather then re-establishing it as a partnership. However, plenty of hurdles would have to be overcome for Tunisia and especially Libya to reach full member status.

The fact of the matter is the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is already very gradually moving in the direction of becomning a kind of sudo-EU observing member status as far as trade and security is concerned through the European Neighborhood Policy. In this fashion states can gain full EU membership when they can reach all the requirements.
 
Ummm... The EU is, at least at the moment, very specifically 'European'. Malta is in the Med, and is debatable, and snuck in. Turkey has European territory - and its old capital is in Europe. And there is massive resistance to Turkey joining.

Tunisia and Libya are neither one 'European' by any definition I can think of.

Now... If the EEC/EC/EU had expanded onto other continents already, e.g. accepting a hypothetical independent Quebec (which is incredibly unlikely, but France might, MIGHT try pushing for it), then MAYBE Tunisia would stand a chance.

Otherwise you'd have to get some really major changes to the EU to allow it.

The obvious possibility is that the *EU forms on a LondonParis axis rather than a BonnParis axis, and colonies are included from the beginning...
 
Actually, I think the simplest way to do this in terms of idea (though not implementation) is to alter Algerian independence so that it ends up staying in the EU. That removes a lot of obstacles immediately due to precedent alone.
 
Ummm... The EU is, at least at the moment, very specifically 'European'. Malta is in the Med, and is debatable, and snuck in. Turkey has European territory - and its old capital is in Europe. And there is massive resistance to Turkey joining.

Tunisia and Libya are neither one 'European' by any definition I can think of.

Now... If the EEC/EC/EU had expanded onto other continents already, e.g. accepting a hypothetical independent Quebec (which is incredibly unlikely, but France might, MIGHT try pushing for it), then MAYBE Tunisia would stand a chance.

Otherwise you'd have to get some really major changes to the EU to allow it.

The obvious possibility is that the *EU forms on a LondonParis axis rather than a BonnParis axis, and colonies are included from the beginning...

I think the acceptance for Turkey would be far greater if they we're richer and had a better record of democracy. And the same would hold for Tunisia: if they had, by now, a stable democratic (and rather secular) regime as long as, say, Spain, and a GDP per capita that's not too far from the European norm (they would need more than the poorest "true" Europeans, though), there would be enough supporters to get them through.
 
I think conceptually including N. African countries in Europe would be a really interesting move. It raises ideas of where a continent begins and ends. But when the Romans constructed their version of the European Union, there was no question that N. Africa was a part of it, the border instead was in Germany. Personally I think that the Sahara is a far more significant barrier than the Mediterranean.

That said, putting Tunisia in might require someone taking another look at the Scheveningen agreement.
 
I think conceptually including N. African countries in Europe would be a really interesting move. It raises ideas of where a continent begins and ends. But when the Romans constructed their version of the European Union, there was no question that N. Africa was a part of it, the border instead was in Germany. Personally I think that the Sahara is a far more significant barrier than the Mediterranean.

That said, putting Tunisia in might require someone taking another look at the Scheveningen agreement.

Except that the Roman version of it was very specifically not an "E"U, it was Mediterranian not European.
 
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