EU aims to revive Middle East peace

The European Union’s top diplomats are meeting their opposite numbers from Israel and its Arab neighbours in Spain today to revive peace talks.

Foreign ministers of the 15 EU nations and 12 North African and Mideast states will open the two-day meeting in Valencia, which is officially devoted to economic cooperation but is overshadowed by the Mideast violence.

The EU has poured much goodwill and money into countries along the southern and eastern rims of the Mediterranean since 1995 to shore up peace efforts, but has little to show for it.

With Israeli-Palestinian fighting the worst in decades, an EU-Mideast free trade area remains a very long term goal given the poor economic performance of most states on the Mediterranean’s southern and eastern rims.

Europe continues to suffer from a low-profile as peacemaker, even as American mediation appears to be getting few results.

Tomorrow, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, whose country holds the EU presidency, is to meet separately with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Nabil Shaat, an aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who remains held up by Israeli troops at his Ramallah headquarters.

Pique will reiterate calls for a cease-fire and peace talks.

He is also expected to push Peres to get Israel to allow an international investigation into events at the Jenin refugee camp, where Palestinians claim Israeli troops killed hundreds of civilians.

EU officials have been highly critical of Israel’s destruction of West Bank towns.

‘‘Israeli defence forces have made a deliberate point of systematically destroying all the Palestinian Authority’s ministries,’’ EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said.