European Union Foreign Ministers are to meet on Sunday in Brussels ahead of their regular meeting on Monday to discuss the situation in Egypt following the resignation of Hosni Mubarak and developments in several other Arab countries in the region.
This extraordinary meeting in the form of a dinner will take place on the eve of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s trip to Egypt where the army has take over powers from Mubarak. She will be the most senior foreign diplomat to visit Egypt since this latest development.
n Cairo, Ashton, who just returned from a trip to Tunisia, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan, is expected to meet political activists as well as members of the civil society and youth leaders. Her spokeswoman was however unable to say whether she would meet opposition leader Mohamed ElBaredei or members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"This will be an opportunity for her to listen to the Egyptians and to assess the priority needs of the country on the road to democracy, "said EU Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner Stefan Fuele.
Meanwhile, inspired by revolts that have toppled rulers in Tunisia and Egypt, protesters in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen have taken to the streets to demand the resignations of their own heads of state.
On Tuesday, the EU urged Iran to let anti-government demonstrations go ahead peacefully. The Iranian authorities cracked down on the protests and reportedly arrested the leaders, with members of parliament calling for them to be executed.
On Wednesday, Ashton called on Libya and Bahrain to allow freedom of expression through peaceful street protests and to avoid violence.
"We call on the authorities to listen to all people who take part in protests as well as what civil society has to say, and to allow free expression," said Maja Kocijancic, Ashton's spokesperson.
The worst violence for decades in Bahrain left three dead and more than 200 wounded.
"The High Representative for Foreign Affairs strongly deplores the loss of life and violence and calls for calm and restraint in this situation," she told journalists in Brussels. "She also calls on the Bahraini authorities to fully respect and protect the fundamental rights of their citizens, including the right to assemble peacefully. The peaceful expression of people’s concerns should be met through dialogue."
This week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg debated what German MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-chairman of the Green political group, called the Arab "democratic tsunami."
During the debate, the parliament's president Jerzy Buzek said about the situation in Bahrain: "Respect for the universal rights of citizens, their rights to demonstrate and freedom of expression cannot be just empty phrases. The Bahraini authorities must listen to its people. The use of violence to disperse peaceful demonstrators is never a solution, and I very strongly condemn a crackdown in the middle of the night. Such an act can never be justified."
Speaking on behalf of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), Spanish MEP Jose Ignacio Salafranca said that the departures of Mubarak and Ben Ali "are necessary conditions but are not enough to guarantee the democratic transition process, a process that still presents many uncertainties, the most important being consolidating democracy."
For the Socialist group, Romanian MEP Adrian Severin observed that "events in Egypt proved that Islam could not be only fundamentalist but can also be democratic."
iberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian MEP, pointed out that the EU must also send a message to Egypt regarding the lack of involvement of secular parties in efforts to redraft the constitution.
Charles Tannock, a British Conservative was the sole member of the parliament to underline in the debate the importance of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel to the Jewish state’s security.
"EU should make its help conditional on preserving peace treaty," Tannock said adding that "EU political parties must help set up secular sister parties in Egypt".