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Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu said at the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) meeting in Brussels that the critical humanitarian situation in Syria may generate new negative effects, with an impact on the stability of the region and the security of the European Union, and reconfirmed the support for maintaining the EU's position of principle (EU involvement in the process of reconstruction of the country according to the implementation, by the Syrian leadership, of concrete steps to move forward in the political process under UN Security Council Resolution 2254).
"On the other hand, the Romanian Foreign minister considered that it is necessary to make the EU position more flexible with the objective of facilitating the unblocking of the Syrian file, in close coordination with the UN Special Envoy, Geir Pedersen, and the United States of America. In this way, the EU could become an actor in the dossier, beyond its already consistent involvement in the provision of humanitarian assistance. Also, Minister Bogdan Aurescu called for a coordination between the EU and the League of Arab States in identifying ways to solve the crisis. He stressed the importance of increased support for the Syrian population, including through involvement in early recovery projects for the direct benefit of local communities and the most vulnerable. The minister also recalled in the context the role of the Romanian Embassy in Damascus," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
During the debate on the situation in Libya, the European Foreign ministers analyzed the ways to unblock the current situation resulting from the postponement of the elections originally scheduled for December 24, 2021. The discussion focused on conveying unified messages from the EU for an assumed and Libyan-led political process, in the direction of fulfilling the priorities agreed in the Paris Conference in November 2021, as well as the mediation process led by Stephanie Williams, the UN GSC Special Adviser in Libya.
"The discussions on Mali have confirmed the political support of the member states for supplementing the EU measures to sanction those responsible for delaying the democratic transition, in line with the decisions of the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS) on 9 January. Regarding the Indo-Pacific region, the discussions approached the ways of implementing the EU Strategy for the region, in the perspective of the Ministerial Forum for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific (Paris, February 22nd), in which the Romanian diplomacy chief will also participate, as a sign of support for starting a rapid implementation of the EU Strategy for the region," the press release reads.
