Allegations of rape, beatings and collusion by EU-funded security forces prompt shift in migration arrangements

The European Commission is fundamentally overhauling how it makes payments to Tunisia after a Guardian investigation exposed myriad abuses by EU-funded security forces, including widespread sexual violence against migrants.

Officials are drawing up “concrete” conditions to ensure that future European payments to Tunis can go ahead only if human rights have not been violated.

Border walls and fences around European countries have grown by 75% in just 10 years and EU leaders have increasingly been open to making deals with autocrats, creating a virtual border across the Mediterranean to stop migrants arriving on their shores.

The Guardian's senior global development reporter Mark Townsend looks back at a decade in which Europe has become a fortress, militarising its borders and moving away from the commitment to human rights on which it was founded