Kadhafi opposes Mediterranean Union plan
TRIPOLI (AFP) — Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi opposed proposals for a Mediterranean Union at a mini-summit of North African and Syrian leaders on Tuesday, saying it would harm Arab and African unity efforts.
"We are members states of the Arab League and also the African Union and we will not take any chances with damaging Arab or African Unity," Kadhafi said.
"Our European partners need to understand that. We are in favour of partnership projects but they must take account of these red lines," he added.
"If Europe wants to cooperate with us, let them do so through the Arab League or the African Union... we will not accept that they deal only with a small group."
Kadhafi was the only leader to speak at the opening session of the mini-summit in the Libyan capital Tripoli convened to discuss proposals by French President Nicolas Sarkozy for a Mediterranean bloc modelled on and linked to the European Union.
The Tripoli meeting comes ahead of a broader gathering in Paris scheduled for July 13.
"The European Union insists on its own unity and refuses to be divided and the initiative of our dear Sarkozy has been firmly rejected by Europe," Kadhafi said.
"The Arab League will not agree either to the division of his ranks or the destruction of its unity."
He was referring to the rebuff that the French president received at an EU summit in March at which he was forced to back down on his original proposal for links between EU and non-EU Mediterranean states and accept German demands that the idea be broadened to include the whole European bloc.
The Libyan leader said the Mediterranean Union proposal was just another "passing fad" which would make no more progress than the so-called Euro-Mediterranean partnership process launched in Barcelona in 1995.
"All these plans have failed and died... we refuse to sacrifice the Arab League or the African Union for these passing fads."
Kadhafi said that promises made to non-EU Mediterranean countries of economic development projects were just "sops" that amounted to a "form of humiliation" for the nations concerned.
"We are not starving and we are not dogs begging to be given a bone."
The Tripoli mini-summit was attended by Algerian, Mauritanian, Moroccan, Syrian and Tunisian leaders alongside Kadhafi. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dropped plans to attend the gathering at the 11th hour because of what officials said was a heavy schedule.
At the end of the mini-summit, which lasted around three hours, Kadhafi invited his counterparts to a closed-door meeting which concluded without any announcements.
"It is finished. There isn't anything else," a Libyan official told waiting reporters at the end of the meeting.
