BRUSSELS (AFP) — Two and a half months after Tripoli freed six foreign medics, the European Union is set to take the first step next week towards closer ties with Libya, diplomats and officials said Friday.
EU foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg Monday, are set to agree a text saying that "the EU and Libya should as soon as possible open discussions on an EU-Libya framework agreement which will include areas of mutual interest," including human rights and migration.
"The message we should now be sending the Libyans is, okay, we are ready to start talking about a relationship, which we haven't been able to do for however many years," said one European diplomat.
The ministers are expected to invite the European Commission to present "draft negotiating directives to this effect," according to the prepared text seen by AFP, which also acknowledges the "constructive attitude" of Libyan authorities in the medics' case.
"That's a pretty broad mandate for the commission to go away and come back with detailed proposals," the diplomat said.
The EU's executive arm could eventually be tasked by the 27 EU member states to begin talks with Libya.
"The objective of this policy of engagement will be to set EU-Libya relations into an appropriate, coherent long-term framework," according to the text.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were incarcerated in Libya in 1999 after being sentenced to death, accused of infecting more than 400 children with HIV-tainted blood in a hospital in the northeast city of Benghazi.
They maintained their innocence and their case sparked an international outcry. International health experts blamed the AIDS epidemic on poor hospital hygiene.
The six were freed in July after their sentences were commuted and following a trip to Libya by EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy.
In light of their release, the EU promised to strengthen ties with Libya.
The EU has no bilateral agreements with Tripoli. It imposed sanctions over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and has not started talks on an accord since it lifted its sanctions in late 2004.
But Libya has recently come a long way from being a pariah state linked to international terrorism.
Among the olive branches to Tripoli under consideration are better access to the EU market for Libyan exports --- notably in the fisheries and agriculture sector, and grants for Libyan students in Europe as well as archaeological and restoration aid.
Also proposed by the Commission is a surveillance system on the north African country's borders to confront illegal immigration -- a serious problem for Europe and a crucial point for Italy and Malta, faced with an influx of clandestine African immigrants via Libya.
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