The European Union is considering sending a military mission to Libya to help evacuation efforts and address the humanitarian crisis, the bloc's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Wednesday, DPA reported.
EU military missions are launched within the bloc's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Speaking to the European Parliament in France, Ashton said the EU was looking "on a prudent planning basis" at a "possible CFSP engagement."
"That engagement would be to support current evacuation and humanitarian efforts," she explained.
Ashton spoke ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Thursday and of an EU summit on Friday, dedicated to the situation in North Africa, and specifically, to the Libyan crisis.
She did not mention the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone - an option under discussion in recent days, amid reports that Britain and France are preparing a United Nations Security Council resolution to authorize it.
The EU's top diplomat said that any CFSP mission "must be very carefully analysed" and would "need proper answers on questions of mandate, resources and objectives."
"That work," she told EU lawmakers, "is ongoing this week."
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