EU split over US draft resolution on Iraq
There was no clash on Iraq as the bloc’s foreign ministers met on the picture-postcard banks of Italy’s Lake Garda, but the issue has once again intruded on the agenda of a key EU meeting.
The ministers got down to planning a season of negotiations on the EU’s first constitution and work on a security strategy designed to make the bloc a more effective global actor and avoid future crises such as its damaging rift over the Iraq war.
“We are talking here about the constitution, where we are going to strengthen the foreign and security policy of Europe, and we start out again with a disagreement between France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain on Iraq,” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told reporters.
“That is not a good start for these discussions.”
France and Germany have voiced strong objections to the text put forward by Washington to broaden the United Nations’ involvement in Iraq, saying it would not cede power quickly enough to Iraqis or to the United Nations.
Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh echoed their concerns.
“You cannot have a situation where the United States remains in control over what happens in Iraq and at the same time others have to move in and take care of security and reconstruction,” she said.
One EU diplomat said Paris was planning to propose about 10 amendments to the text of the UN resolution.
But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said talks were under way at the United Nations to resolve the differences and he was optimistic an agreement could be reached.
“Some partners are saying ‘well it doesn’t go far enough’,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the EU meeting.
“But everybody recognises that it represents a significant move in the right direction towards further strengthening the role of the United Nations and above all of providing a faster timescale to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people.”
He was expected to use the meeting to lobby EU partners, some of whom were deeply opposed to the US-led invasion of Iraq, to throw their weight behind Washington’s initiative.
Iraq will come up at the EU meeting on Saturday, when ministers will also debate how to revive the “road map” for peace in the Middle East and whether to outlaw the political wing of the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas.
About 400 anti-globalisation protesters pushed back police lines guarding the conference centre as the ministers arrived and took over the main square of the mountain-ringed town. But after an hour-long stand-off they dispersed.
Italy, current EU president, proposed a timetable and work plan for an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the constitution which it hopes can be wrapped up by year-end. Opening in Rome on October 4, the IGC will work from a draft text proposing a revamp of EU decision-making and institutions to prepare it for enlargement to 25 member states from 15.
