The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting the programme of the Foreign Affairs Council, which will be held by videoconference on Monday 23 March.
Initially, it was to focus in particular on the Middle East peace process and the situation in Ukraine. In the end, only the European response to the coronavirus will be on the Ministers’ agenda.
Diplomacy leaders will discuss the foreign affairs implications of COVID-19 with a focus on the repatriation of EU citizens stranded abroad and the geopolitical implications of the pandemic. More than 100,000 European citizens are reportedly blocked outside the EU (see other news).
Libya. The Council could also address the situation in Libya, in particular the creation of the new Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) Irene mission for monitoring compliance with the arms embargo on Libya. Member States still have disagreements about this mission (see EUROPE 12450/21).
Syria. Finally, Ministers will return to the situation in Syria and its impact on the EU’s external borders with Turkey. They had already addressed this subject, as a matter of urgency, at an extraordinary Council meeting on 6 March in Zagreb (see EUROPE 12441/10).
On 10 March, the EU and Turkey decided to launch a process of dialogue and identify the successes and shortcomings of the bilateral migration agreement of March 2016 (see EUROPE 12443/6). While the ceasefire agreed in early March between Turkey and Russia in the northwest of the country seems to be holding, the conflict sadly celebrated its ninth anniversary on 15 March 2020 and the country seems to have been hit by COVID-19 as well. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)