Tunisia is one of the EU’s oldest partners – the first bilateral agreement dates back to 1969 – but years of close partnership with its leader, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, brought little insight. Few could have predicted the breath-taking speed with which Ben Ali’s repressive regime was toppled, but EU capitals, and Brussels, have badly misread the dynamics within Tunisia in recent years.

The situation will remain highly fluid for a long time, but the response of EU governments, the European External Action Service and the European Commission should be shaped by six questions, and the answers to them.

Was this a revolution?
Events in Tunisia certainly have revolutionary characteristics: for the first time in modern times, a Maghrebian society had freed itself of a highly repressive domestic regime. But it remains highly uncertain whether the system will truly be transformed. It is also unclear how liberal a system the protesters want, since they are united neither by ideology nor by a view of how state institutions should function.

What happens next?
The experience of other transition processes suggests several principal influences. First, there will be a desire to restore calm and order swiftly. Much will then depend on the ability of the de facto coalition for liberalisation – the middle classes, the unemployed, and the military – to generate and sustain a consensus about the shape of the political and economic system. Sustaining that consensus will require what political scientists call ‘a resurrection of civil society’ and the containment of radical forces and the old elites.

Who is the chief powerbroker?
The key powerbroker is the military. It also has respect, credibility and legitimacy: unlike Ben Ali’s security forces, the military – which has maintained an apolitical tradition – is held in high regard, and its chief of staff, General Rasheed Ammar, enhanced its status by ignoring Ben Ali’s orders to clamp down. But will it now seek a status quo similar to that imposed by Ben Ali (formerly a military man), or act as an anti-status quo force? Will it split into soft-liners and hard-liners, with the latter seeking to establish military rule, as was the case in Algeria in the 1990s?

What are the EU’s interests?
If there is a return, in effect, to the pre-protest status quo, unrest could even spill over into Europe. If a political and security vacuum opens up in Tunisia, the EU will have serious cause for concern. Radical forces could emerge. The EU’s growing bilateral trade surplus could be threatened. And it needs security, as the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline, which brings gas from Algeria to Europe, runs through Tunisia. The EU therefore needs to support change and socially cohesive policies.

What are the EU’s commitments?
The EU has interests, but it also has commitments – including the self-imposed commitment to promote democracy. This is a golden opportunity to live up to it. It needs to make clear that democratic reforms will be rewarded. Those rewards could be substantial aid for democratic forces and for job-creation programmes (particularly in the impoverished hinterland), initiatives to integrate Tunisia more into the EU’s single market, and a looser visa regime for qualified Tunisians. Since rising food prices fuelled the unrest, the Commission should use its existing Food Facility to provide immediate food aid.

Who should lead?
This is Catherine Ashton’s moment. The EU’s foreign policy chief has a unique chance to convince the fragmented protest movement that the EU’s policy will amount to more than just a disguised, elite-oriented policy that pursues France’s post-colonial interests. The Union for the Mediterranean should have no role: its chief responsibility is limited (primarily to co-operation on projects) and it has been unable even to meet that challenge. The EU should deal with all reform actors in Tunisia on a strictly bilateral basis.

This is crunch time for Tunisia – and, just possibly, for other Arab countries. The EU’s challenge is to find a rapid response to a historic moment in Tunisia – and to avoid being overwhelmed should history change direction once more either in Tunisia or in another southern neighbour.

Tobias Schumacher is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology at the Lisbon University Institute and co-editor of the “IPRIS Maghreb Review” produced by the Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security.

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