Brussels, 02/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - With protests against the regime in the streets of Cairo starting to degenerate into violent clashes, the EU on Wednesday afternoon stepped up the pressure on President Hosni Mubarak to speed up political transformation and respond to the democratic and socio-economic aspirations of the people. The transition must be credible, effective and must start immediately, in other words it cannot wait until after the presidential elections of September, for which President Mubarak has pledged that he will not stand (he made the announcement in a televised speech on Tuesday evening), Catherine Ashton told the European Parliament meeting in Brussels on 2 February. “The political system has reached the point of no return. Change must come now”, she said. “The time has come for orderly transition and peaceful far-reaching transformation”, added the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs. On Monday, the foreign ministers also called for an “orderly transition”, without explicitly calling for it to begin immediately, with no further delays. Calling for the change to be “immediate”, as Ashton has now done, clearly equates to calling for President Mubarak to step down, even though the EU has still not publicly said so. “There is not the slightest doubt about the way we interpret the words transition and transformation” of the country: this means that they must have “an urgent nature and we call on President Mubarak to do things as quickly as possible”, Ashton most diplomatically stressed. On Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry rejected all calls for an immediate transition of power.
MEPs. The president of the S&D Group, Martin Schulz, repeated his calls for Mubarak to step down immediately. The EU is wrong to fear that the Islamists will take advantage of the vacuum of power the president may leave behind him, he said. “The demonstrators do not wish to build a theocratic state, they want a secular regime, democratic democracy. These are our partners, we must support them”, said Schulz. Given the bad news coming from Cairo, it would be “shameful” if the EU waited for Friday's summit to take position on events in Europe, said Green Rebecca Harms. Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the ALDE Group, also called for Mubarak to go. “Change the position of the EU and say that you support the Egyptian people 100%”, he told Ashton.
Commission. On Wednesday morning, the European Commission held a debate on Egypt, after which it published a declaration, in which it: - recognises the “legitimate aspirations” of the Egyptian people; - calls for an “orderly transition” to prepare free and fair elections; - proposes to increase its aid to Egypt and its people. (H.B./transl.fl)