European Union foreign ministers were urged on Saturday to consider the previously taboo idea of dialogue with Islamic opposition groups in the Middle East to encourage a transition to democracy. They also discussed ways to strengthen emerging democracy movements in several Arab states and persuade authoritarian governments to relinquish some power and accept the principle of alternation, diplomats said.
On the second day of an informal brainstorming session at a chateau in Luxembourg, the ministers were presented with a paper that suggested, at least in the form of questions, that the EU should reach out beyond its traditional secular interlocutors.
“In the past the EU has preferred to deal with the secular intelligentsia of Arab civil society at the expense of the more representative Islam-inspired organizations,” the report said. “Has the time come for the EU to become more engaged with Islamic ‘faith-based’ civil society in these countries?” asked the paper co-authored by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the bloc’s Luxembourg presidency.
See also Islam Online, 18 April 2005
The news follows a report that the US State Department has drawn up a memo calling for dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – much to Robert Spencer’s disgust
We look forward Nick Cohen, Outrage, Harry’s Place, the AWL, the Worker Communist Parties of Iran and Iraq et al joining with Spencer in denouncing the State Department and the EU for this abject capitulation to Islamo-fascism.