EU looks for own role in crisis

By CATHERINE FIELD in Paris

Little by little, Europe is distancing itself from the United States in the Middle East crisis.

It is finding the confidence to speak up in defence of the Palestinians and to oppose US pressure to attack Iraq.

The US is widely regarded as being uninterested in the role of peace broker or is being discounted because of its alliance with Israel, and more eyes are turning to Brussels to grope for some way out of the Mideast bloodbath.

The European Union does not have the clout with Israel that Washington has, and its own voice is weakened by the differing opinions of its 15 national Governments.

Positions range from the Greeks, who are pro-Arab, and the French, who are suspicious of Washington, to the British, who are staunchly pro-American. But despite these problems, the EU is taking an increasingly assertive role.

It worries that the policy void is fuelling religious tensions that are spilling over dangerously into Western Europe - as shown by a rash of arson attacks on synagogues in France this week.

As a result, transatlantic positions that seven months ago were in step because of September 11 are now widening by the day.

The US has acquiesced in the Israeli invasion of Palestinian-controlled towns after the Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, and has paid only lip service to Yasser Arafat as a player in the search for peace.

In contrast, the EU has declared Arafat to be the Palestinians' legitimate representative and its "interlocutor" in any negotiation.

EU foreign policy supremo Javier Solana defiantly described Arafat, surrounded by Israeli forces in Ramallah, as a prisoner.

He said the Palestinian leader had no control over suicide bombings commanded by Islamic groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"The situation will not be settled through the means being used now. A military operation is not going to resolve the conflict but, on the contrary, aggravate it," Solana said.

In the past week, Egypt, Jordan and Syria have sounded out the EU on taking a firmer role in the conflict, while Russia has sent its foreign minister to confer with Spain, the EU president.

The EU's executive commission has sent a peace envoy to the region - one of four, along with representatives from the US, Russia and the United Nations - to try to defuse tension.

And it has pointedly announced that the EU would continue to provide budgetary help worth €10 million ($20 million) per month to Arafat's beleaguered Palestinian Authority to help meet civilian expenditures.

What has caused the EU-US rift to widen? President George W. Bush's view of the world.

In an interview published in the daily Liberation, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said he regretted that since September 11, the Americans "instead of toning down their initial, unilateralist reflex have in fact emerged with a vision of the world that is even more Manichaean (black and white) than before".

In the Middle East, Jospin said, "the fear that the situation could spiral out of control prompts the US to act quickly to lower the tension, but without the wish to exert sufficient pressure on the Israeli Government".

Bush's attempts to rally support for an offensive against Iraq, one of the "axis of evil" along with Iran and North Korea, have similarly made no headway on this side of the Atlantic.

Pascal Boniface, head of the Institution of International Relations and Strategic Studies, said that in France at any rate "the US today is perceived as a problem, not a solution".

Articulating Europe's dismay is, however, different from taking steps to intervene.

The EU's biggest national Governments are divided as to how far to tread a different line from Washington. Many policymakers shrug when asked what the EU can do.

The EU's biggest weapon - economic sanctions against Israel - is considered impractical. "The Germans would walk straight out of the room if anyone suggested it," said one diplomat.