Carthage — Former Portuguese President and United Nations (UN) High Representative for the Alliance of Civilisations Jorge Sampaio said, on Wednesday, that Tunisia needed to overcome the socio-economic difficulties hindering the democratic transition process, pointing out that solving these hardships "requires consensus to ensure success of the Tunisian experience."

During his talk with President Moncef Marzouki, he added that "Tunisia is able to develop a successful democratic transition model that definitively breaks with dictatorship."

According to a communiqué of the Presidency of the Republic, the meeting offered the opportunity to review the Portuguese democratic transition experience and look into mechanisms that would help Tunisia draw on it to overcome the obstacles of democratic transition.