EU kept in dark about Libya trip by Sarkozy's wife

BRUSSELS, July 13 (Reuters) France kept European partners in the dark about a trip by President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Cecilia to Libya to visit Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death for infecting children with HIV, an EU source said today.

The European Commission has been patiently negotiating with Tripoli for years to win the release of the five nurses and a Palestinian doctor, whose death sentences were confirmed by the Libyan Supreme Court this week.

European and Libyan officials have said the medics could win a reprieve as early as next week after Libya's Gaddafi Foundation said on Tuesday it had reached a compensation deal with the families of the 426 infected children.

EU officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed exasperation at what some saw as a French attempt to grab credit at the last minute for their possible release, without coordinating with other European partners.

Asked when the EU executive had learned of Cecilia Sarkozy's trip on Thursday accompanied by the president's chief of staff, the EU source said: ''The first we knew about it was when we got a call from Libya to say she was on the ground.'' Britain had also been closely involved in the talks, EU officials said. Ties between London and Tripoli improved after Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner has visited Libya twice to meet the nurses, offer European aid to improve public health at the Benghazi hospital where the children were infected and discuss with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi efforts to achieve the medics' release.

A spokeswoman for Ferrero-Waldner said the EU reached agreement with the children's families last month on medical care and support for the hospital.

''Our contribution will be in kind, i.e. guarantees for the medium- and long-term medical and psychological treatment of the children and their families, and support for the Benghazi hospital,'' Christiane Hohmann said.

Sarkozy announced on Thursday his wife had met the nurses and had two meetings with Gaddafi.

The Libya visit was Cecilia Sarkozy's first major solo political outing as first lady after keeping a low profile since he took office in May.

It was not the first time Sarkozy had upstaged his European partners without consultation in his two months in power.

Last month, he sprang a proposal for a six-month delay in resolving the final status of Kosovo on a summit of the Group of Eight industrialised powers in Germany, without prior coordination with European officials trying to negotiate a U N resolution on the breakaway Serbian province.

In jail since 1999, the medics say they are innocent and were tortured to make them confess. Some Western scientists say negligence and poor hospital hygiene were the real culprits and the six were made into scapegoats.

REUTERS ARB RN1927