Sopot, 02/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 2 and Saturday 3 September, European foreign ministers gathered in Sopot (Poland) focused on the subject of Libya (see related article). Upon arriving at the Gymnich meeting, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton said: “Last night we had a meeting in Paris which brought together the international community to now focus our attention on supporting the people of Libya into the future, to build the country that they want. The team I sent is in Tripoli now. We have the beginnings of the European Union delegation, we have people there, the European Union flag is there, in support of the people. And in my many discussions with Mr Jibril and Mr Jalil, we talked to them about the kind of support that we can offer”.
Supporting political change in North Africa is also the objective that the Polish government, which presides over the work of the EU, has set itself. Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the Polish secretary of state for European affairs, underlined during an interview with Agence Europe that his country played a monitoring role. “Poland can serve as a model as a democracy that has overcome a totalitarian regime. We have experience of transition”, he explained. Poland has asked Lech Wa³esa (the former anti-Communist activist who founded the trade union, Solidarnosc) to pass on his experience to the revolutionaries in order to peacefully overcome the dictatorship. (V.W./transl.jl)