By Elizabeth Tristan

MADRID (Sunatimes)- "I'll answer two questions and then I'll disappear because I have to preside a dinner with the African Union that has already started without me". This is how the high representative [of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy], Catherine Ashton, came out of the foreign ministers' council this Monday [26 April] in Luxembourg.

The Briton said her haste was on account of trying to solve the problem put to her a few hours earlier by the European defence ministers, who have been capturing Somali pirates for months, but don't know what to do with them. Since Kenya condemned the agreement by which it pledged to try Somalis handed over to it by the servicemen of Europe's Operation Atalanta, the pirates make a free round trip: the commander of the mission, British Rear-Adm Philip Jones, has given the order to destroy with cannon fire the skiffs they use to harass the merchant ships and fishing boats that cross the area and to place the Somalis safe and sound on the beach.

In the morning, the defence ministers gave Ashton the job of finding a solution and in the afternoon she asked the foreign ministers, in search of ideas. "It is difficult to find a solution", acknowledged the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who is one of those who thinks that "the problem is not at sea, rather on land, in Somalia".

For the time being, the EU has managed to convince Kenya to continue accepting detainees, in spite of the fact that they complain that the Europeans have not kept the promises they made when this agreement was signed.

The foreign ministers are considering other solutions, such as stepping up cooperation with the Seychelles, where they accept pirates being handed over to them, but without trying them, setting up a prison system in Jutland [as published - means Puntland], the part of Somalia that is half controlled by something akin to authority, or even forming a new "Regional Court" - a formula which costs even more money but which would curb the fears of different countries of becoming a terrorist target of the Somalis.

Meanwhile, the EU continues trusting in the idea that a training mission for Somali soldiers in Uganda and in Djibouti (under the command of Spanish Colonel Ricardo Gonzalez Elul) will end up serving to put some order into the Somali territory. "But it is necessary to pay them because if they do not receive their salaries, we shall be training people who will go back to stealing to feed their family", warns Kouchner.

Copyright: Sunatimes

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