Gaddafi welcomed by EU chief

Last updated at 15:42 28 April 2004


Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took another big step towards international respectability today when he visited European Union headquarters.

European Commission President Romano Prodi broke with protocol to welcome Gaddafi personally at Brussels' Zaventem airport, where the Libyan leader, dressed in a red fez hat and grey-green sweeping robe, descended the gangway followed by female guards in dappled blue camouflage uniforms.

The Libyan leader then held talks over lunch with Mr Prodi and other European officials.

Waving portraits of Gaddafi, more than 200 supporters staged a colourful pro-Libyan demonstration outside the European Commission building as the two leaders arrived in a white stretch Mercedes limousine.

One over-enthusiastic Gaddafi supporter, dressed as a security man, caused a scare when he tried to present a letter as the Libyan leader and Prodi shook hands for the cameras inside the building. Belgian security guards hustled him away.

A smaller group of about 50 Libyan exiles staged a human rights protest outside EU headquarters, chanting "Gaddafi terrorist" and holding a banner proclaiming "Gaddafi is a wolf in sheep's clothing". Police kept the two groups apart.

The landmark trip - Gaddafi's first to Europe for 15 years - was a reward for Libya's agreement to pay compensation for the Lockerbie and UTA airline bombings and its spectacular renunciation

of weapons of mass destruction.

Gaddafi will stay the night in a black Bedouin tent, complete with satellite dish, pitched in the grounds of a Belgian state residence and also meet Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

The Libyan leader is expected to submit an application to join the EU's Euro-Mediterranean partnership, a trade, aid and culture pact linking the wealthy European bloc with 11 southern and eastern Mediterranean neighbours, including Israel.

However an EU spokesman said yesterday that Libya would have to satisfy German and Bulgarian grievances over its past actions before it could fully join the Euro-Mediterranean process.

Germany is demanding compensation over the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque frequented by US soldiers. EU candidate Bulgaria is demanding the release of six Bulgarian medics held since 1999 on charges of deliberately infecting children with the HIV virus.

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