Foreign Affairs Council: Remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell at the press conference
Today it is the second Foreign Affairs Council of this month, a month [that] began the New Year with many problems.
As you can imagine we discussed about Libya but as current affairs, it was not a point in the agenda, so there is no concrete decisions but long discussions and information. Yesterday the Berlin conference brought a unique momentum into the efforts of getting closer to a political solution, with this 55-point declaration that was agreed by the strongest international representation I have ever seen because the whole Security Council was there. It is a big success of the German diplomacy, both how the conference was held and the agreement itself.
At the Foreign Affairs Council, 10 days ago, I was given a strong mandate from my colleagues of the Foreign Affairs Council to engage with all actors with the objective of moving towards this political solution. It is important, I want to stress it, that there is still no ceasefire yet, we are in a truce.
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But both sides have put forward five names of people who will work on a sustainable cease-fire. This was not possible before the conference, Salamé [Ghassan Salamé, UN Special Envoy to Libya] was asking for the two sides to have these five representatives at the military table of negotiations, now both sides have put forward these five names and these are important steps in order to get a sustainable ceasefire.
Today we have been analysing the situation after the Berlin conference and how the EU can engage more forcefully. And after analysing the situation and several hypothesis of what can happen the next days, we have tasked the working body of the Council; the Political and Security Committee, where the EU Ambassadors are sitting, to present to the Council concrete proposals on how to implement this ceasefire and enforcing the UN arms embargo.
I how that this will be ready for the next Foreign Affairs Council, but in the meantime we have to pass from truce to a real ceasefire. Anyway, the situation is much better today than last week. Read more
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