Sarkozy "going it alone" again in Libya deal-Germany

BERLIN, July 27 (Reuters) France's offer of nuclear cooperation for Libya has sparked outrage in Germany, where lawmakers see it as yet another example of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ''go-it-alone'' approach to foreign policy.

Sarkozy signed a memorandum of understanding for a nuclear energy deal with Libya during a visit that was aimed at deepening relations with the oil-exporting north African state.

His surprise visit came after Libya decided to allow to return home Bulgarian nurses who spent eight years in Libyan jails for allegedly infecting Libyan children with HIV.

One of Germany's senior parliamentarians accused Sarkozy of not consulting with the European Union's other 26 members and said he was ''trying to do too many things at the same time''.

''Even if it costs time, France should be interested in strengthening Europe's foreign and security policies,'' Ruprecht Polenz, the head of the foreign policy committee in Germany's lower house of parliament, told Reuters.

''But that's not what's happening with these go-it-alone moves,'' he said.

Other politicians from the two coalition parties said a nuclear energy project with a country which only recently ended years of isolation was premature and potentially dangerous.

It is less than four years since Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi announced he was scrapping his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.

''Even if Gaddafi is not interested in nuclear weapons, we can't know who will be in power after him and what happens then,'' said Ulrich Kalber, deputy head of the centre-left Social Democrats' (SPD) parliamentary grouping.

The West eventually lifted sanctions against Libya and world powers are now jostling for lucrative infrastructure contracts in the country, a member of OPEC.

PARTNERS AT ODDS This is not the first time Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have clashed since he was elected in May.

Sarkozy's efforts to weaken the euro and his calls for greater political influence over the European Central Bank have led to disagreements between the two countries, the two most powerful in the euro zone.

Analysts say a budding Merkel-Sarkozy rivalry may have already been visible at a recent EU summit.

They said the French president, who came to power promising revolutionary changes in France and Europe, upstaged Merkel at the Brussels summit which she was chairing.

Sarkozy has justified the Libyan nuclear offer by saying the West should trust Arab states to develop such technology for peaceful purposes or risk a war of civilisations.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt say they are planning to develop nuclear energy programmes. US President George W Bush has said he was worried Iran's atomic ambitions could provoke a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

A French diplomat said Germany's reactions were exaggerated.

He said Libya had been cooperating with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna and had signed all the neceessary international agreements. The IAEA declined comment.

This is not the first time France has offered nuclear technology to an Arab state. French companies were building a nuclear power plant in Iraq under a deal with President Saddam Hussein until Israeli air strikes levelled it in 1981.

Reuters GT RS2046