Malta’s Foreign Minister Michael Frendo has asked the European Union to include a full discussion on Zimbabwe on the agenda of the General Affairs and External Relations Council and said that there is a need for a Council/ Commission paper setting out options for pursuing EU relations with Zimbabwe.
“The Zimbabwean people are suffering and we cannot just leave them to their fate,” said Dr Frendo. He was speaking yesterday at the European Union General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting held in Brussels.
Dr Frendo said the Council of Foreign Ministers had, in its conclusions of July 2005, said that it would keep EU policy towards Zimbabwe under constant review.
Following the recent meeting of EU Commissioner Louis Michel with the Zimbabwean Finance Minister, this was now the time for ensuring that Zimbabwe “remains on the EU’s radar screen”, said Dr Frendo.
The people of Zimbabwe are just surviving, he said, adding “there is an increase in the use of torture, a shortage of everything including anti-retroviral drugs, an inflation rate that, in April, reached 1,000 per cent and, according to IOM, the destruction of houses has displaced an estimated 300,000 people nationwide.”
In this context, Dr Frendo said that a date for the EU-African Union summit in Lisbon is needed as soon as possible and the issue of Zimbabwe should not get in the way of such a summit which is, indeed, even more needed because of situations such as Zimbabwe.
He pointed out that stability and development in Africa was also crucial in the context of illegal immigration and security issues.
Malta joined Spain in emphasising the need for the EU Commission to enforce Article 13 of Cotonou (that requires countries of origin to take back illegal immigrants) – a current EU approach upon which Malta had insisted during Foreign Minister Frendo’s intervention in the informal Foreign Minister’s meeting in Newport, UK, in September last year.
Newly-appointed British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, speaking for the first time in the Council, supported Dr Frendo’s raising of the subject of Zimbabwe in the Foreign Ministers’ Council (GAERC) and his call for the EU to keep this country under review.
During the Foreign Ministers’ Council, Dr Frendo also spoke on the issue of the preparation of the agenda for the Heads of State and Government European Council in June. The Presidency is proposing a discussion on various items that relate to the issue of the future of Europe, including conclusions in June that touch on, for example, subjects such as illegal immigration, subsidiarity in the European legislative process, enlargement, external energy relations, and improved coherence of external policy.
He supported the detailed draft agenda, commenting that this will take forward the debate on Europe’s future, but cautioned against losing focus and, in this regard, called for the leaders’ declaration to be sharp and crisp.
“It must be readable and clear to European citizens,” he emphasised. Dr Frendo added that the debate and consequent declaration should be seen as part of the process of the debate on the Constitutional Treaty and not a substitute for it. “It is not a standalone,” he concluded.