BRUSSELS, Belgium, January 8, 2016/APO (African Press Organization)/ —
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It is very important for me to be here today, meeting again my friends, and it is especially an honour for me to be the first of the international partners to meet with the Presidency Council.
It is particularly important to do so in a day of mourning the victims of yesterday’s attack in Zliten and before in Sirte.
We started our meeting today by expressing our condolences to all the victims, to all the Libyan victims of terrorism, that are, as are Europeans, victims of terrorism experiencing one of the saddest times in our history.
The people of Libya deserve peace and security. And I think that there is not one single Libyan today who is not tired of war, conflict and sorrow. With the Libyan political agreement, with the Presidency Council, with the Government of National Accord that we hope can be put in place soon, there is finally, after so many months, a real possibility to unite among Libyans and to try to fight terrorism.
As the Libyans express the courage and the willingness to unite, to put their country back on track, and to regain security and peace, Europe, the international community is there to show its own unity in supporting this process.
I am very satisfied with the meeting we just had because for the first time, after so many months, we started discussing concrete ways of supporting the Libyan people in different fields, very concrete discussions on the humanitarian support we can give, institution building, security track, all very concrete daily issues where the European Union cannot substitute, but can support a Libyan leadership to take responsibility.
There are some things that the European Union has continued to do to support the Libyan people, in particular on humanitarian assistance, even in the most difficult times of the crises over these difficult two years.
But we have always indicated that there is much more that we are willing to do. We have €100 million for support – from humanitarian aid to support to institutional building – ready to be utilised immediately from day one when the Government of National Accord works.
Obviously, priorities need to be defined by the Libyan authorities. We started this discussion today and I am particularly glad because it becomes real, it starts to become real.
The security situation is still extremely challenging, the access is going to be still a challenge. We have decided that our teams will continue to work very closely together to make all these projects happen in the near future.
Let me say before I conclude that I am particularly grateful to Tunisia and the government, the country, the people for the support in these difficult times to this process. I also want to thank the UN Special Envoy Martin Kobler who has been doing tremendous work in these last couple of months to bring together, especially the international community, in support of this process.
But my first thanks in the name of all the Europeans is to all these Libyans that took the decision, the responsibility to start this process and to tell them that we are firmly at their side. Count on us as we count on you.
