EU?inaction over nurses irks Bulgarian voters

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Series Details 03.05.07
Publication Date 03/05/2007
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With elections to the European Parliament set for 20 May in Bulgaria, one issue certain to dominate the hustings is the death sentences handed down to five nurses in Libya.

A court confirmed the sentences in a retrial last December and an appeal is expected to be heard sometime soon, perhaps even this month.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were convicted on charges that they deliberately infected more than 400 children with HIV/AIDS, despite scientific evidence that there were infections at the hospital in Benghazi before the medical workers arrived.

A separate case has been brought by police officers who say they were defamed when the six medical workers claimed they were tortured into confessing to the HIV infections. That could see a three-year jail sentence imposed on them. The case is to be heard this weekend (6 May) and could see the nurses spending even more time in jail, in addition to the eight years they have already spent in prison, even if the death sentences are lifted.

In the middle of such a crisis many Bulgarians believe that the EU is being eerily silent on the matter. The Council of Ministers issued a veiled threat to Libya in January saying the death sentences must be lifted before "relations between the Union and Libya can further develop". The matter since then has only been raised by member states at an informal level during Council meetings.

German ministers have been vocal on the issue but last week the German ambassador to Bulgaria, Michael Geier, appeared to jump the gun when a Bulgarian newspaper quoted him as saying:

"As a result of activities between the European Commission and Libya we understand that already during the German presidency the Bulgarian medics can go back home."

The German presidency and the Commission have said that Geier was misquoted and that he in fact said he had hoped the six medical workers would be released soon. But the incident demonstrates the vacuum of information that surrounds the case.

The Commission refuses to say at what stage negotiations with the Libyans are at or who exactly - Commission or presidency - is leading the talks. "We are very active in trying to sort this out but we are not going to do it in public," a Commission spokeswoman said.

While the Libyan authorities balk at any public political pressure on them over the trial, behind the scenes they are said to be seeking $2.7 billion in compensation for the medical workers’ release - the same amount of money Tripoli paid to the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing.

The Commission is said to be entertaining the idea of paying the money while some member states are vehemently opposed. "The EU needs to tell [President Muammar] Qaddafi ‘no way’ on this one. The Libyans are using this as revenge for Lockerbie," said one diplomat.

Another diplomat points to internal complications in Libya whereby vast amounts of funding for Benghazi might not be particularly welcome. Benghazi is a conservative city where tribal leaders and Islamic militants have opposed Qaddafi’s rule.

The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling for the medical workers to be released and MEPs recently met families of the nurses in Brussels. But efforts appear piecemeal and are unlikely to achieve much. Bulgarian MEPs are considering sending out information packs to national parliaments informing them about the plight of the medical workers. A proposal by the Union for Europe of the Nations group of MEPs to send a delegation from the Parliament to Libya is weeks later still being discussed by the heads of the political groups.

On the one hand the EU’s tactics on cajoling Libya behind the scenes may be the right course of action to take. "The only chance we have of solving this is through quiet diplomacy, there is no point in grandstanding on this one," said a diplomat.

On the other hand some believe it is the different interests that EU member states have which is preventing them from sending a strong message to Libya. "Some member states advocate being more lenient because of co-operation on migration, counter-terrorism and energy matters," says Gergana Noutcheva, an associate research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies.

It is for this reason Bulgarian voters going to the polls may feel most let down following their membership of a Union which promised so much.

"The EU is strong on common values and comes out against capital punishment and human rights violations. There is a strong case to be made that on the balance of interests this [the nurses] side is very strong," said Noutcheva.

"But we haven’t seen the EU work coherently on this one and it’s regrettable."

With elections to the European Parliament set for 20 May in Bulgaria, one issue certain to dominate the hustings is the death sentences handed down to five nurses in Libya.

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