THE GOVERNMENT is examining a request from the Egyptian military to freeze any assets held in Ireland by members of Hosni Mubarak’s entourage. The military sent similar requests to all EU member states and Switzerland, but it has not called for the freezing of any assets held by Mr Mubarak or his family.
Such requests were briefly discussed at the urging of British chancellor George Osborne when EU finance ministers met yesterday in Brussels.
However, they passed the matter to the next meeting of European foreign ministers next Monday.
“I can confirm that the Irish Government has received a request to freeze the assets of a number of named individuals,” said a Government spokeswoman.
“This is being considered by the relevant authorities at national level and in consultation with our EU partners ahead of the foreign affairs council next week,” she said.
When Mr Mubarak suddenly left office last Friday, the Swiss authorities moved immediately to freeze any of his assets or those of his family.
The EU, however, was reluctant to consider freezing such assets in the absence of any formal request from the authorities in Cairo.
The requests from the Egyptian military to freeze assets were sent bilaterally to EU member states on Monday.
“We’ve noted the request made by the Egyptian authorities and the discussion on this will continue as part of a broad package of support for Egypt which we are discussing,” said a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
The Hungarian finance minister, Gyorgy Matolcsy, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said as yesterday’s meeting was breaking up that a final decision on the subject should be taken by foreign ministers.
“This will be decided quickly,” said Mr Matolcsy’s German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble.
While senior European diplomats discussed the request yesterday, it remained unclear last night whether any initiative to freeze assets would be widened to include Mr Mubarak and his family.
Europe froze the assets of former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and members of his entourage last month.