First meeting on Wednesday in Tunis of Tunisia-EU task force

The Tunisia-European Union task force is holding its first meeting on Wednesday to secure better coordination of the European and international support to transition in Tunisia. The task force is co-chaired by Interim Prime Minister Beji Caïd Essebsi and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The meeting will also be attended by Stefan Fule, member of the European commission in charge of enlargement and neighbourhood policy and Bernardino Leon, EU special representative for the South Mediterranean. The first session, devoted to investment and growth, will be held on Wednesday afternoon with attendance of private sector representatives and the second session to be held on Thursday morning will deal with support to democratic transition in Tunisia. A news conference will be held at the end of this meeting . "In Tunis, Mrs Ashton and Mr. Fule will affirm the full support of the EU and the international community to Tunisia's transition to an open and democratic society, less than one month ahead of the elections of next October 23," announced on Tuesday the European Commission. The task force will take special care of backing economic revival in Tunisia with concrete actions that will aim especially to allow the recovery of the frozen assets of ousted president Ben Ali and his relatives, to boost direct foreign investments and to promote job creation. It will deal as well with co-operation for access to market, people's movement, education, research and support to civil society. Agreements on EU aid worth about one billion euros will be signed during the meeting. The task force will secure follow-up and implementation of its decisions and will meet again in 2012 for assessment of medium and long-term plans.