EU takes new role in ME with UN mission

French UN soldier stands guard as the French warship "Foudre" approaches from the Beirut harbour to land heavy trucks and equipments for the Engineers yesterday. Israel and Lebanon both welcomed an EU pledge to contribute up to 7,000 troops to a beefed-up UN peacekeeping mission capable of enforcing the fragile truce with Hezbollah. PHOTO: AFP

With nearly 7,000 soldiers pledged for the UN force in Lebanon, Europe's commitment marks an "historic opportunity", said Spanish Foreign Minister Miquel Angel Moratinos, himself a former special EU envoy to the region.

"The time has come for European efforts to relaunch peace in the Middle East," he said Friday after his EU counterparts met in Brussels with UN chief Kofi Annan.

"Europeans are gaining more in credibility, in presence and engagement in the future of this region, which is our region," he said.

Italy, which will be the force's biggest contributor with up to 3,000 soldiers and which will take over its command next February from France, was hopeful that the commitment would mark a new era of EU influence in the region.

"It's the first time that Europe assumes such a strong responsibility in the region and we hope there will be a change, not only for the stabilisation of the border between Israel and Lebanon, but also to push peace in the whole region" said Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema.

European countries promised at the meeting of the 25-nation bloc's foreign ministers on Friday to provide not only the core of the expanded UN force, which is due to total up to 15,000 peacekeepers.

Until now, the EU's role in the Middle East has largely been limited to providing aid and trying to play the honest broker in the volatile region's many conflicts.

But the Centre for European Reform's foreign policy director, Mark Leonard, said that the presence of a large number of European troops not only reinforced Europe's credibility with regional players, but could also mark the beginning of a new "strategic" role.

"The EU has not behaved in a very strategic way in the past, it has not used the resources that it's put into the region toward political goals and increasing its leverage," he said from London.

"But if several members states are directly exposed and have troops on the ground, the EU will have both more credibility but will also behave in a more strategic way," he added.

Europe's new found role comes as the United States standing in the region takes a battering due its staunch support for Israel, its difficulties in Iraq and Iran's defiance to back down on its nuclear ambitions.

"For us, the Middle East is a question of stability, our stability. We are so close while for the Americans it's different," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.