European Diary: An eerie calm has descended on the European quarter in Brussels.
With the holiday season getting into full swing, most EU diplomats have jetted off to spend August at home or on the beach. But this pleasure will prove elusive for Europe's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, given the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Middle East.
Solana, who celebrated his 64th birthday last month, has spent the past few weeks traversing Europe, the Middle East and Asia unsuccessfully pushing for an "immediate ceasefire" to end the fighting. "In the Middle East, you ignite a match and you do not know how the fire will end," he warned after talks in Beirut. "That is why we have to stop it with acts of goodwill by everybody. The EU is trying to do that."
Today, he will be back in Brussels as EU foreign ministers meet in extraordinary session to try to forge a united policy on the conflict.
The task won't be easy given the conflicting positions of member-states on the crisis, which critics say is once again highlighting Europe's impotence in foreign affairs. "When two big states such as France and Britain don't agree on a policy, then the EU has little influence. You have the same situation as in the war against Iraq," says Daniel Keohane, an analyst with the Centre for European Reform (CER) in London.
The conference in Rome last week exposed EU divisions. A group of member-states led by France, which included Ireland, pushed for an immediate ceasefire to ease humanitarian suffering in Lebanon, while Britain opposed any call for an immediate halt to the fighting.
The "special relationship" between the US and Britain - a phrase coined by Winston Churchill - was a critical element in the split in the EU, with Tony Blair, as he did in the Iraq war, siding with the US position ahead of a rival French-led proposal.
"There is a great deal of personalisation of foreign policy in the Middle East by Tony Blair which probably is not shared by everyone in the foreign office. He is clearly very close to the US administration," says Fraser Cameron, an analyst with the European Policy Centre, a think-tank in Brussels. But it is not just Britain which has difficulties agreeing to the more interventional policy advocated by the French. Cameron highlights the difficulties that Germany will have in sending troops to the Middle East region given its own history.
At the weekend, German chancellor Angela Merkel linked Germany's role in an international force in the region to the Holocaust. "We have to be clear on the fact that the current crisis was sparked by Hizbullah. Hizbullah has fired rockets at Israel for months, has kidnapped Israeli soldiers. It is a historical duty of German policy to strongly support the right of Israel to exist," she told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, while also stating that she was reluctant to send troops.
Institutional weakness is another factor which impedes Europe's foreign policy, and particularly its ability to speak with a single voice, according to CER's Daniel Keohane. "Solana is no foreign minister. He is a type of chairman with less power. His influence also depends on how well he gets on with the presidency," he says.
The delay in implementing the EU constitution, which would have formally elevated Solana to the position of EU foreign minister, means that he also has to share the world stage in Europe. For example, at today's meeting in Brussels, two other commissioners - Benita Ferrero-Waldner (external relations) and Louis Michel (humanitarian aid) - will also present their ideas on the Lebanon conflict, begging the question: who speaks definitively for Europe in foreign affairs?
Contrast Solana's position with that of Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade commissioner, who is given an exclusive mandate to negotiate the EU 25's position at world trade talks.
Last week, when the world trade talks collapsed, Mandelson felt confident enough to heap blame on the US in a succession of public comments, something Solana has not been able to do in relation to US support for Israel's offensive.
At today's meeting, EU foreign ministers will revisit the question of whether an "immediate ceasefire" is the best way to get peace in Lebanon. But if they cannot agree among themselves on a clear strategy, few can blame Israel and the US for ignoring whatever diplomatic statement comes out of the EU talks.