The time has come for outsiders to stop condemning Algeria from afar and to go there and discuss that country's problems, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, declared at the summit.
Over dinner on Friday night he gave his fellow foreign ministers a short account of his visit to Algeria last week. He detailed his discussions with the president, foreign minister and speaker of parliament.
He also sent a written report of his meeting to all EU capitals on Saturday. "The presidency was grateful for my report and supported future visits by ministers from other member-states," Mr Andrews told a press conference.
He praised Algeria's President Liamin Zeroual as "a fine man, dedicated, a strong decent man interested in the future of Algeria.
"My belief is the more dialogue there is with Algeria the better. The time has come to stop this megaphone diplomacy condemning Algeria from afar.
"I think it important that we go to Algeria, we discuss the situation in Algeria, we offer our solidarity to the people of Algeria who are effectively between a rock and a hard place."
He said terrible atrocities had been committed there in recent years and some 80,000 people had died since 1992.
But "directing your venom at the Algerian authorities from a distance is not the solution to the problem, and they are actually fed up with it. Foreign Minister Attaf indicated to me that if people want to discuss the problems with him they should discuss them with him face to face."
He said the chemistry between him and Mr Attaf had become very good. The Foreign Minister had suggested that religious fundamentalists were the cause of "most, if not all" of the problems in Algeria.
"He made the case on his behalf and on behalf of their own government that their hands were clean and anything they might do would be in the interests of protecting the welfare of the people.
"But I was only there for 24 hours: I could only assess the situation over that time and I wouldn't for one moment suggest that I could become an expert on Algeria in 24 hours."