BRUSSELS (EJP)--- EU foreign ministers have urged Israel "not to resort to disproportionate action" when defending itself against Hezbollah attacks, while member states are evacuating their own nationals.
Foreign ministers, meeting on Monday in Brussels, were briefed by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana following a Sunday trip to assess the escalating violence in Lebanon.
EU ministers agreed on a statement which was as similar as possible to a text adopted by G8 leaders in St Petersburg over the weekend in order to create an "international front to press Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah," Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot said.
The statement says that the EU is "acutely concerned" at the situation in the Middle East, "in particular at the deteriorating humanitarian situation and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and deplores the loss of civilian lives on all sides."
"The European Union condemns the attacks by Hezbollah on Israel and the abduction of two Israeli soldiers. It calls for their immediate and unconditional release and for the cessation of all attacks on Israeli towns and cities," the text says.
Israel's legitimate right recognised
The "EU recognises Israel’s legitimate right to self-defence, but it urges Israel to exercise utmost restraint and not to resort to disproportionate action,” the statement adds.
According to EU observers, the passage of the declaration on Israeli actions was notably weaker than earlier statements issued by the current Finnish EU presidency last week, which had called Israeli violence "disproportionate."
An Israeli diplomat in Brussels said that Israel disliked this wording, asking: "What do people expect Israel to do?" in face of the "indiscriminate terror" by Hezbollah rocket attacks.
EU ministers also recalled "the need for the Lebanese state to restore its sovereignty over the whole of its national territory and to do its utmost to prevent Hezbollah attacks."
French President Jacques Chirac said last Friday that the Israeli offensive against Lebanon was "totally disproportionate" and suggested Israel was taking advantage of the situation to settle its scores with Hezbollah.
"One may well ask if there isn’t today a kind of wish to destroy Lebanon -- its infrastructure, its roads, its communications, its energy, its airport - and for what?" he said in his traditional Bastille Day live television interview.
Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja accused Israel in a blog on the Finnish EU presidency web site last week of applying the principle of "20 eyes for one eye," while Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told reporters at Monday’s Brussels meeting that the G8 declaration "doesn’t go far enough for many people."
Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos asked the EU to condemn what he called “the disproportionate Israeli attacks against the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples” and demanded that Israel fulfils international laws.
Moratinos is a former EU Mideast envoy.
The Spanish initiative coincided with the position adopted last week by the president of the Spanish government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who condemned and demanded the end of the Israeli air strikes, and said that “no anti-terrorism fight justifies the lost of human lives.”
Some EU states reluctant to condemn Israel
But some EU member states have been reluctant to openly condemn the Israeli action in Lebanon.
According to diplomatic sources, language more critical of Israel was removed from the EU foreign ministers’ declaration at the behest of states such as Britain, Germany and Holland which have strong ties with Israel.
EU ministers also discussed the possibility of sending troops to the region as part of a new UN peace force.
UK prime minister Tony Blair said on Monday at the St Petersburg G8 meeting: "The only way in my view we are going to get a cessation of hostilities is if we have the deployment of an international force into that area that can stop the bombardment coming over into Israel and therefore gives Israel the reason to stop its attacks on Hezbollah."
EU ministers agreed to in principle contribute to such a force if the UN would request so, according to the Finnish foreign minister.