Council Invited to Write Text on AU Authority

Ousseynou Guèye (PANA)--The heads of State and government of the African Union Thursday in Sirte, Libya, asked the executive council to meet in emergency to adopt only one text on the transformation of the Commission into an Authority, AU Commission President Jean Ping disclosed to PANA.

The decision was made at the end of a four-hour debate on the issue, which polarised the attention of the heads of state, and government, who said they could not deliberate on the issue because two texts were proposed to them, according to sources close to the summit. In the absence of a final report on the works of the executive council, the president of the executive council, the secretary of the AU affairs to the Libyan popular committee for external Affairs and international cooperation, Ali Triki, presented a text, including proposals by Libyan leader Mouammar Kadhafi.

These proposals touch on the competence of the Authority, defence, security and external relations. In addition, they say that full executive powers must be given to the Authority, which would also absorb all the other organs. However, these proposals are not in the second text submitted to the delegations.

After long discussions, the question became ‘which text should we rely on to deal with the issue of the transformation of the Commission into an Authority,’ the source said. In the end, the heads of State and government decided to send back the two texts to the foreign affairs ministers to harmonise their position.

A visibly upset Kadhafi declared to the heads of State and government that he was not fighting for the interests of his country because, as he put it, Libya had sufficient resources to take up the challenges of development. ‘We are close to Europe and the Union for the Mediterranean is courting us, but we remain deeply pan-Africanists,’ he was quoted as saying. He warned: ‘should this discussion fail’, he would no longer participate in a debate on the government of the Union.

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