The Council Adopts Report on AU Authority

(PANA)--The 12th extraordinary session of the executive council of the African Union (AU), meeting since Wednesday in Libya, on Friday adopted a report on the creation of an AU Authority to replace the existing AU Commission.

The Council also agreed on the structures as well as the plan of action for the proposed Authority. A source close to the meeting told PANA that the Authority which will replace the current Commission will have ten secretaries in addition to the chairman and vice chairman. PANA reports that participants at the session brainstormed for more than seven hours which reflected the difficult negotiations that took place.

However, issues concerning foreign affairs, security and defence remained unresolved and were rescheduled for debate at the next summit of heads of State in July. The AU executive council chair, Dr. Ali Triki of Libya told the press after the meeting that the AU Authority would be launched after the July summit. He said negotiations at the meeting were successful, adding that when established, the AU Authority would be made up of the current executive council, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the AU peace and security council. He added that the July summit had powers to increase or modify the number of secretaries within the Authority.

Answering a question from PANA on why the executive council took all this time to make a decision, Senegal’s Foreign Affairs Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said it was ‘quite normal given that issues relating to sovereignty, foreign affairs and defence needed to be thrashed out’. Gadio said that the most important thing was that Africans had now come to terms with the need to achieve unity.

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