Prague, 16/01/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Union will be sending a mission to the United States to learn what the intentions of the new US administration are concerning the fate of prisoners to be released from Guantanamo prison, the European Commission announced on Tuesday 15 January. “We shall go with Ivan Langer (Czech Home Minister) to meet the new US administration”, said Jacques Barrot, European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, speaking during the informal meeting of EU home ministers in Prague. The meeting with the US administration is due to take place in February. The debate on taking in the Guantanamo detainees was not a priority of ministerial discussions but some ministers hoped the question would be raised. “We do not have a formal request from the Americans”, Mr Barrot said. “We need to know what they expect us to do”, Mr Langer said for his part. “We expect that Mr Obama will tell us what he wants, and what his intentions are. We need something concrete”, he added. A number of member states were nonetheless reticent about the idea of possibly hosting former Guantanamo prisoners in Europe, those who could not be sent back to their countries of origin because of the ill treatment they would receive there. “Austria refuses to take in prisoners. America created Guantanamo. It must also provide a solution”, the Austrian minister for the interior, Maria Fekter, said during a press meeting. Wolfgang Schäuble of Germany said it was “up to the Americans to assume their responsibilities”. “Solidarity with the Americans does not seem necessary and if we were to ask the home ministers for their opinion, the general opinion would be that there is no need for a European initiative”, he stressed. Germany's Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier was nonetheless in favour of such an initiative. “We must have European consultation. At any rate, processing should be on a case by case basis and not a general basis depending on the past and the passiveness” of the persons concerned, said Michèle Alliot-Marie of France. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was in favour, on Thursday, of France possibly taking in Guantanamo prisoners once freed on a “case by case basis”. The subject will be discussed on 26 January by the EU foreign ministers during a meeting in Brussels. In his last comments to the press, US President-elect Barack Obama pointed out that closure of Guantanamo prison would no doubt take longer than expected. During the race to the White House, he had promised that the prison camp would disappear within 100 days after his investiture. For the first time, a former high-ranking official of the George W. Bush administration admitted, on Wednesday 14 January, that torture had been used against a prisoner in the Guantanamo camp. The outgoing president has always affirmed that the United States does not use torture. (B.C./transl.jl)