Brussels, 21/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - The French minister for foreign affairs, Laurent Fabius, is calling for measures to be taken on the threats hanging over the near Mediterranean as a result of the Malian crisis and its effects on security in Europe.
“After the Libyan conflict, terrorist groups set up in the north of Mali with a great deal of arms and a great deal of money coming from drugs trafficking and ransoms linked to hostages”, Fabius recalled in an interview published on 21 November in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “They are threatening not only Mali and its neighbouring countries in Africa, but Europe too - France, Germany, Great Britain and others. That is why Europe cannot lose interest” because “as soon as you cross the Malian border, you are in countries bordering on the Mediterranean”. However, Fabius considers that “action in Mali is first a matter for the Africans themselves” but that Europe can act on three fronts - political (supporting reconciliation between Malians), security (training local and West African troops, without European armed forces being on the ground), and humanitarian.
“We need to understand that (in Mali) we are facing two great evils of the 21st century - terrorism and drugs trafficking. It is encouraging that, on this subject, there has been unanimity at the Security Council up to now, when unfortunately it remains divided on so many other areas.” And apparently Europeans are all in tune: “The Germans know as well as us, and the British, the Polish, the Italians, the Spanish and others” that “our own security cannot be indifferent to what is happening a few hundred kilometres away from us”.
In his interview Fabius also deals with other issues that are important for the domestic life of the EU (including the Franco-German relationship, institutional developments, the Europe of defence without the United Kingdom, and the situation in Syria).
Algiers against military action. Algiers does not want “a war in its immediate neighbourhood” and is convinced that the direct consequences of the armed conflict in Mali - whatever the reasons for it - can only be “disastrous”, Mourad Medelci, the Algerian foreign affairs minister, said on national radio on 19 November. He added that “even the foreign countries, which chose military intervention, have started to gradually rethink after the latest developments in the region - characterised by the declarations of Ansar Dine and the Movement for the Liberation of Azawad to finish with the Jihadist movements and the rejection of terrorism, and declaring crime and extremism in the region” (our translation throughout). (FB/transl.fl)