Background to the sanctions
Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and a number of ministers were forced to resign as the result of widespread popular protests against the regime in January 2011. The Tunisian authorities then initiated legal action against several individual members of the former government and those close to them on suspicion of embezzling Tunisian public property and other economic crimes. In light of this, the EU decided on 31 January 2011 to introduce targeted sanctions, in the form of the freezing of assets, against individual members of the former government suspected of embezzling public assets, money laundering and similar economic crimes, and against persons (natural and legal) linked to them.
