Brussels, 24/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Before the work of the European Council kicked off on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 March, the family of European Liberals called for a bold EU commitment with regard to the situation in North Africa. “The European Liberals back the Security Council decision to protect the civilian population by every means necessary”, said Anemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck, who heads the ELDR, in a press release published after a Liberal Party lunch just before the summit. She said they expect the EU to act swiftly in a decisive and coherent manner, and underlined that immediate EU action should go hand in hand with a long term strategy. “It is not the moment to play sand castles - allowing bilateral relations to take the upper hand over the EU common way is not a constructive way forward”, she said. The prime minister of Finland, Mari Kiviniemi, took the view that it is difficult to foresee when the situation in Libya will be stabilised but Helsinki is ready to give full support to humanitarian aid. Didier Reynders said there were no obstacles to the EU using military assets. However, the former prime minister of Belgium said that, at the end of the day, what counts is that, in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt or other countries concerned, “transition must lead to free elections”. Germany's Foreign Secretary Werner Hoyer stressed that, beyond military activity, the process for adopting sanctions against Colonel Gaddafi's regime should be speeded up and the EU should take action for providing economic support. He said one must not be content with a solution “where at the end we stop Gaddafi from further torturing his people (…) but staying in power and leaving the country in a mess”. “It is in our field of responsibility to ensure that the humanitarian needs are met, and beyond that it is up to us to make sure we will not limit our view to Libya exclusively and forget those countries and those people who triggered this process weeks ago”, he said at the end of the meeting.
The Liberals also placed emphasis on the importance of decisions that must be taken with regard to economic governance. On behalf of the European Commission, Siim Kallas had underlined the “fundamental” nature of the eurozone stability mechanism which is due to be adopted by the EU27 at the summit. “We started this story two decades ago. (…) Now we have Lisbon and we have found out that we need more economic conversion next to currency union”, Hoyer said. If “we succeed in securing our currency and making it more sustainable, it will be a very, very successful summit”, he added. (A.By./transl.jl)