EU leaders will today be discussing a “game plan” on the situation in Libya which includes proposals made by Malta and Italy, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
Among the proposals is that any action must be led by the United Nations, with Malta and the EU “on the same page” in terms of UN involvement, he said.
“For any action to succeed, it cannot be done by the EU alone but must also include the UN,” he told journalists at the start of an EU summit in Brussels. Libya will top today’s agenda.
Dr Muscat expressed satisfaction that there is finally discussion about alternatives should the efforts to create a united Libyan government not succeed. “The game plan we are discussing is very clear,” he said, without giving any more details.
Dr Muscat said he had a long informal discussion with the EU representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, on the EU plan based on the talks being conducted by the UN special envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon. Malta’s position was that anything that was done should be UN-mandated and involve Arab countries.
The EU could not be seen as imposing itself on Arab countries but should be working with them towards a solution, Dr Muscat said.
He said the discussion was also about what alternative action could be taken if talks aimed at the formation of a national unity government failed.
Earlier, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, who is in Brussels attending a European People’s Party meeting, told journalists that Dr Muscat ought to persuade the EU to take concrete action about Libya, saying this was his “test”.
Action, he said, needed to be taken urgently. Libya needed peace and a unity government. The international community, and particularly the EU, needed to contribute to the achievement of this peace.
EU leaders yesterday also endorsed an energy policy which seeks to improve cooperation with gas-producing countries such as Azerbaijan.
The EU, Dr Muscat said, was proposing supply arrangements with non-EU countries or regions such as Algeria and Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, the Middle East, Africa and other potential suppliers
The initiative was a “perfect fit” for Malta in view of the Memorandum of Understanding it had signed recently with Azerbaijan on cooperation in the provision of oil and gas.
The initiative towards creating an Energy Union coincided with the government’s plans for the sector including the proposal for a Mediterranean gas platform, he said.
This could pave the way for the financing of a gas pipeline between Malta and Sicily and eventually, once there was stability, with Libya and other North African countries, doing away with the need to moor a gas storage tanker in Marsaxlokk Bay.