EU - Dassù briefs Lower House - Europe resolve divisions over Mediterranean

By Italy - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EU - Dassù briefs Lower House - Europe resolve divisions over Mediterranean
EU - Dassù briefs Lower House - Europe resolve divisions over Mediterranean

ROME, Italy, October 30, 2013/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The chaos in Libya and its need for a “Marshall Plan”, divisions over the complex Mediterranean region, European Union foreign policy and a united and effective Europe, were the issues confronted today in a briefing by Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Dassù before the lower house foreign affairs commission on EU foreign and security policy.


Libya, a “Marshall Plan” to quell the chaos


Libya is “already Somalia”, since “total chaos” reigns – this was the alarm launched by Marta Dassù as she spoke today before the Lower House, making no secret of how “unmanageable” the situation has become and how the “black hole of Misurata is now the principal font of the migration problems” that Europe, and Italy, are going to have to face. The Deputy Minister commented on “our crucial role in efforts to put things right”, underscoring nevertheless, the additional need for “a sort of international 'Marshall Plan' “ to raise that “disaggregated” country out of a political paralysis, infighting and terrorism, two years on from the end of the Gaddafi regime, at risk of spreading “to the Sahel, for example”.


From the Mediterranean to energy, the EU needs to update common strategy


Touching on more specific community aspects, Dassù explained that “the only foreign policy that has worked is enlargement”, while other dossiers, such as the Mediterranean Neighbourhood Policy “remain fraught with division”. In the Balkans, for example, we have “exported democracy and common standards to countries that are not modernised, but where the EU does not offer membership it is less effective”, she added. Instead, in the case of the Mediterranean, divisions among the interests of “major nations such as France, the UK and Germany” have weighed on decisive fronts such as Libya and Syria. For that reason, Dassù underscored, the EU must “update a common strategy that has not changed since 2003” in order to “have a more prominent role in global challenges”. This updating, according to the deputy minister, should also be channeled through the energy dossier, where “the EU should have a common policy negotiated with major suppliers” such as Russia, Azerbaijan and the Arab Emirates to “reduce the energy price divide with the United States”.