EU: The Minister for Foreign Affairs has called for the EU to make a formal diplomatic protest to the US over its support for Israel's plan to extend Jewish settlements in the West Bank writes Denis Staunton in Valkenburg.
In the Dutch town of Valkenburg, where he is attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Cowen said the Israeli plan was a direct challenge to the Road Map for peace in the Middle East that is sponsored by a quartet composed of the EU, the US, Russia and the UN.
President Bush has expressed support for the Israeli settlement plan, which is due to accompany Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
"Regardless of the fact that we are in the throes of a Presidential election campaign, a very strong demarche needs to be made to both the US and Israel," Mr Cowen said.
A demarche is a formal diplomatic message delivered confidentially by the representative of The EU's foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, told the ministers that the EU should consider ways of convincing the US to be "more forceful" with Israel over the settlement issue.
Mr Cowen said other ministers also favoured making a formal protest to Washington but EU diplomatic sources expressed scepticism about the prospect of such action being taken ahead of the next meeting of the quartet in New York.
The ministers agreed to go ahead with an EU-Asia summit in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, next month, despite the Asian countries' insistence that Burma should be allowed to attend.
At a meeting in Tullamore, Co Offaly, earlier this year, EU foreign ministers said they would not attend a meeting with Burma until that country's military government released the opposition leader, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, from house arrest, stopped the harassment of opposition activists and allowed open debate.
The ministers agreed yesterday that, if Burma had not fulfilled these three conditions before next month's summit, the EU would tighten sanctions against the regime, extending a visa ban covering senior army officers and forbidding EU registered companies to make finance available to enterprises owned by the Burmese state.
Mr Cowen said the ministers considered the relationship between the EU and Asia too important to refuse to attend next month's meeting.
"The Burmese issue will not hold EU-Asia relations hostage," he said.