Brussels, 24/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 23 June, the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament and the parliamentary delegation for relations with Maghreb invited the deputy director general for external relations at the European Commission, Hugues Mingarelli, to take stock of EU-Libya negotiations. This consultation process, held after the session in early June in Tripoli, is now an institutional obligation under the Lisbon Treaty, Mingarelli pointed out, promising MEPs as much information as possible with the endorsement of the member states.
Taking stock of the state of progress of negotiations, Mingarelli said there has been “progress” in “three chapters” of the future agreement. These chapters are: general principles, financial cooperation and institutional provisions, i.e. the architecture of the agreement. Following his presentation, he specified that the legal base (association agreement or simply a cooperation agreement) will be determined at the end of the process depending on the results of the negotiation and the resolve shown by Libya after the talks. “On the other hand”, he added, “we were not able to conclude the rest”. He cited the trade chapter, on which it is in fact the member states that have still to fine-tune their response. Mingarelli was keen to play down the disagreement on this subject, saying “there is the same thing in talks with Russia, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq”.
On the whole, he said, progress has been made on political dialogue. “Libya has proven to be open and receptive” and agrees to the setting up of dialogue on human rights as on other political aspects such as the commitment not to hold weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or the fight against terrorism, especially in the Sahel region. On immigration, “a number of points” are still outstanding, Mingarelli said, and these points are difficult, especially that relating to readmission. On this point, as on others, he wished to underline that Libya is not unique in refusing this chapter. Nearly all countries of the region are willing to accept the fact that they must voluntarily take in their own nationals seeking to gain illegal entry to Community territory, but not those of other nationalities, he explained in substance. “Most states already have bilateral agreements with our member states”, he noted, implicitly pointing at the European contradiction whereby what is bilateral contradicts or thwarts the collective approach. Ana Gomes (S&D, Portugal) spoke of the fate reserved for asylum seekers. This was backed by French Green member Hélène Flautre, who said she was “shocked” that the Commission had not protested more after learning that the UNHCR in Libya had been closed. For Mingarelli, this was a false impression as talks are ongoing between Geneva and Tripoli.
Hugues Mingarelli also highlighted how difficult it was to obtain an agreement with Libya regarding a reference to the powers of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is not espoused by Libya. Here again, however, Libya is not alone in its refusal. “Several of the EU's major partners” do not show more acceptance of the reference to the “Rome Statute” (the treaty establishing the ICC). “We shall not give up but it would be progress indeed if the Libyans were to accept a clause” that commits them to “combat serious crimes” (genocide, war crimes, etc), or in any case to admit that impunity is not acceptable.
An exclamation went up from Marie-Christine Vergiat (GUE/NGL, France), who asked: “Are you naïve, just pretending or trying to make a fool of us?” Mingarelli retorted saying: “I can rule out the third possibility and leave you free to choose between the first two”. He summed up by stressing that a minimal agreement would be better than no agreement at all. “We are laying the foundations for dialogue”, he pointed out.
During the debate, when Cristian Dan Preda (EPP, Romania), Malika Ben Arab-Attou (Greens/EFA, France), Antonio Panzeri (S&D, Italy), Evgeni Kirilov (S&D, Bulgaria) took the floor, several questions were raised on the trade regime of the future agreement (the Commission foresees support for Libya to help it reform its structures that are too much under state control, and also to improve
women's rights). Several MEPs deplored the fact that no account was taken of a very recent report by Amnesty International (EUROPE 10166). (F.B./transl.jl)