The European Union Delegation in Tunis Tamed

It seems that the Dutch, Adrianus Koetsenrui, Ambassador Head of the EU delegation in Tunis is determined to obtain the blessing of the Tunisian authorities, even if this would offend the local civil society and affect his mandate.
Under his guidance, the delegation engaged in an active partnership with the Tunisian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote the Tunisian project to access the advanced partner status with the EU, which has attracted many reservations in Brussels.
Thus the site of the delegation was transformed into a body of support to the ambitions of Tunisia, in chorus with the official media, exclusively invited to press briefings of the Ambassador.
This is how a public consultation of questionable rigor on the advanced status, was very quietly announced.
This consultation actively spread by the RCD (the ruling party) websites, has no other justification but paving the way to the official meeting of the ad hoc committee on advanced, scheduled on December 23rd, 2010.
 In an environment hostile to the expression of unorthodox opinions, there is no doubt that the initiative will be reduced to plebiscite the claims of Ben Ali’s government.
This happens on a time where Tunisian independent NGO’s require that such a status should be coupled with a stricter observance of the human rights commitments, especially as defined by Article 2 of the partnership Agreements.
But there are things more significant in this development. The delegation which has established an informal group for the independent civil society since 2006 including the autonomous NGOs – including the unrecognized, which they used to consult regularly as part of the EU Guidelines on Human Rights - now seems to favor a more complacent conception .
Recently, on December 6th, 2010, the Ambassador organized in partnership with the Tunisian Foreign Ministry, "an Information and Consultation Day on the advanced status" ,to which he invited ATFD and AFTURD, alongside many  NGO’s and parties " represented in the Parliament." He thought that he was doing good by inviting Mokhtar Trifi , as an individual and Chedly Ben Younes , leader of the dissident group at the origin of the complaints against the LTDH and promoted as a representative of the Tunisian League for Human Rights .
This generated a strong reaction from the 3 NGO’s ATFD, LTDH and AFTURD.
They addressed a letter to the Ambassador.
On their part, the Progressive Democratic Party and the Democratic Forum for Work and Liberties expressed their dissatisfaction with their exclusion by the delegation services.
Ambassador Koetsenruijter’s new approach seems not to take account of the bitter observations made by former US Ambassador.
Godec, formulated in a secret memo revealed by Wikileaks website: "[Ben] and his regime have lost contact with the Tunisian people. They do not tolerate criticism or advice, whether they are national or international. "