Trade deal on financial sanctions and a freezing of assets

Apartments in Paris and Ile-de-France, cottage in Courchevel, villas on the Riviera... The extent of the heritage of former President Ben Ali and his family is not precisely known. But the desire to learn is clear. In Tunisia, the official TAP news agency yesterday announced the opening of an investigation into property and securities acquired abroad by the former President and his entourage. And even if the Central Bank of Tunisia denied, yesterday, any leakage of the President stripped with 1.5 tonnes of gold, the suspicion of improperly acquired property are in people's minds.

In Brussels, Ambassadors of the political Committee and security (COPS), a Council body which deals with situations of crisis and possible EU responses, must meet tomorrow to consider sanctions and, more generally, to aid that the Union could provide humanitarian aid to the Tunisia - support for political reforms and economic development, etc. The discussions are just beginning. No position is stopped on the sanctions. But "the idea was well received at the first meeting, slips an informed European source. "Trade deal on financial sanctions and a freezing of assets. "Sanctions are of course an option," argues a spokesman of Catherine Ashton, without more details. If the ambassadors reach agreement recorded an it will be then a European political level "There is a willingness to move quickly because once the European Union has endorsed the principle of the freezing of assets of former President Ben Ali, will be a legal basis, this will be much simpler to act," said the source cited above.

"The France could do more."

This should satisfy the NGO Transparency International France and Sherpa, specialized in economic crime. They have filed a complaint in France "from various family members Ben Ali and Trabelsi to gain the opening of a judicial information with respect to the assets they have in France, it is likely that they are the product of embezzlement of public funds". But they believe that "the France could do more than what it has announced in directing its European partners to the freezing of assets of the clan Ben Ali", in the words of Maud Perdriel-Vaissière, of the Sherpa association. Same tone in transparency International France, where its President, Daniel Lebègue, explained, he "did not understand why the French Government has not asked the Prosecutor of the Republic to initiate legal action." If you wake up in a week or two, the heritage of the Ben Ali and Trabelsi families will leave the France. What will it look "The French Ministers of economy, Christine Lagarde, and Budget, François Baroin, prefer to stick to the letter of the convention of the United Nations on the return of the improperly acquired property and alert Tracfin for monitoring strengthened on abnormal financial movement. January 15, François Baroin indicated that the France was "available to the constitutional Tunisian authorities to see as much necessary what they want, with regard to the real estate assets of Ben Ali and his entourage." Comments for associations, are a de facto recognition of the existence of a heritage of the Ben Ali and Trabelsi in France families.