European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will travel Monday to Tunisia and possibly later to Egypt and "other countries in the region" as part of the EU’s efforts to boost peace and democracy in the region, officials said in Brussels.
At their summit last week, EU leaders mandated Ashton to go to Egypt in order to convey EU’s call for an “orderly transition to democracy and for fair elections”.
On Friday, she said she espects Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's decision to resign and called for dialogue to form a broad-based government.
Ashton stated that the European Union shares the Egyptian people’s desire for an orderly transition to a democratic government and free elections.
Ashton’s spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said she will visit Tunisia on Monday, a month after president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted, and wanted to go from there to Egypt as well as other countries in the region.
In Egypt, she hopes to meet all political actors involved in dialogue with the authorities, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
On Friday, Ashton said the EU could help with organiszng elections: "The EU has a lot of knowledge and experience in building democracy. I hope to personally go."
In a joint statement issued on the same day after the announcement of Mubarak’s resignation, Ashton together with EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso called for an "acceleration" in the government's national dialogue process.
"It is important now that the dialogue is accelerated leading to a broad-based civilian government which will respect the aspirations of, and deliver stability for, the Egyptian people," it said.
They stressed "regional stability" as the priority.
"An orderly and irreversible transition towards democracy and free and fair elections is the shared objective of both the EU and the Egyptian people ... The preservation of regional peace and stability should remain our shared priority."
"The future of Egypt rightly remains in the hands of the Egyptian people. We call on army to continue to act responsibly and to ensure that the democratic change takes place in a peaceful manner."
A British member of the European Parliament, Conservative Edward McMillan Scott, said Sunday in Cairo that he was not worried about the Muslim Brotherhood "because Egypt is a moderate country."
"In my experience, Egypt is a moderate country that can enjoy democracy as all other countries and in that, religion plays a role," said McMillan Scott, the first European Union official to visit Egypt since Mubarak resigned following 18 days of popular uprising.