The telephone conversation took place yesterday between the European Commission President Romano Prodi and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi - a few hours before the UN Security Council vote that could decide by next Friday the lifting of sanctions imposed in 1992 after Tripoli's involvement in the Lockerbie massacre - reveals that the Libyan dictator gives the normalization of relations between Libya and EU strategic importance probably higher than that of its "Rehabilitation" on the international political scene and with the U.S. in particular.
Besides the EU and Libya have always had intense commercial relations. In particular, Italy, Germany, UK and France deliver more than 50% of Libyan imports. Italy, Germany, Spain, France and Greece alone absorb about 70% of exports from Libya. The 1.4 million barrels of oil produced daily from Libya covering 51% of Italian oil requirements, 13% of the German and 5% of the French.
these data that explain the constant attention and anxiety reciprocated EU standards. The sanctions imposed by Brussels in 1992 following the UN resolution, however, have prevented the inclusion of Tripoli in the euro-Mediterranean partnership launched in 1995 with the Barcelona conference (from which the Libyans were left out) and directed to establish closer political and economic cooperation between the countries involved and to create by 2010 a free trade zone euro-Mediterranean, including some 40 states, and between 700 and 800 million consumers, would become one of the largest business entities in the world. After delivery, in 1999, the accused of the Lockerbie and following the suspension of sanctions, Libya has been allowed to attend, as invited by the President, the third euro-Mediterranean conference held in Stuttgart in April 1999 and given the status of observer in the Barcelona Process. But only the complete removal of the (already suspended), UN sanctions may pave the way for the full integration of Libya into the partnership.
After the agreement reached in recent days between Tripoli, Washington and London, which provides for acceptance of responsibility by Libya in the Lockerbie tragedy and a compensation of $ 2.7 billion to the families of 270 victims, the way seems open space. Only obstacle, the opposition in Paris, which is threatening a veto if the families of 170 victims of the attack in 1989 destroyed the flight French UTA, Libya - who is responsible and who had already agreed with France significantly less compensation than promised recently to the UK and U.S. - will not recognize an additional compensation such as to place them on the same level of family members of victims' attack in Scotland. But France is totally isolated and is now paying to have always maintained, in contrast with the U.S. yesterday and today with itself, the need to lift sanctions on Libya. It seems, once again, having hunted down a blind alley.
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