Ministers will have coffee with Mahmoud Jibril

(BRUSSELS2) “ We have planned a meeting after lunch and before the working session, on the sidelines of the Council and in a totally informal way. explains a senior European diplomat. The international representative of the Libyan National Interim Transitional Council (CNT), Mahmoud Jibril, will indeed be in Luxembourg on Tuesday (*). And several countries (Italy, Denmark, Spain) have asked that the 27 Foreign Ministers receive it.

The only problem: if certain governments, France in the lead and the United Kingdom followed by Italy, have decided to recognize the CNT as the "sole legitimate interlocutor", others consider it only as an "interlocutor among others "(Germany), even would prefer another interlocutor. Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta, according to our information, would be the most reluctant to this meeting and to recognition. " All the difficulty - stresses a European diplomat - is not really the encounter. But that this meeting cannot be interpreted as recognition of the CNT by the European Union”. On another side, " it is also very delicate to leave the CNT on the sidelines and not want meet them ". It is therefore necessary to "dress" the meeting so that it appears fortuitous and detached. Moreover, only voluntary States could attend.

(*) The Council of Ministers of the European Union, which normally meets in Brussels, holds its April, June and October sessions in Luxembourg.