French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the European Union should decide as a bloc whether and when to support the Palestinian Authority's bid for United Nations recognition as a state.
The Palestinian leadership plans to formally submit a request for United Nations membership on 20 September, when world leaders begin gathering in New York for the 66th session of the UN General Assembly.
"I hope that the 27 countries of the European Union speak with a single voice. We should live up to our responsibilities together," Mr Sarkozy told an annual conference of France's top diplomats.
Israel implacably opposes such a statehood move, saying negotiations are the only way to resolve the conflict and establish a Palestinian state, a position backed strongly by would-be Middle East peacebroker the United States.
France and some other European states have been more sympathetic to the Palestinians' frustration, but Paris wants to head off a diplomatic showdown that could finish off the already paralysed peace process.
The Palestinian bid for statehood comes after direct peace talks with Israel ran aground late last year in a dispute over Jewish settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land.
The situation on the ground has since worsened, with renewed settlement building in East Jerusalem and periodic rockets attacks on Israeli targets by Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip.
Source: RTE-NewsNote: Nicolas Sarkozy is playing with [spiritual] fire; bringing the devine curse on his country France, and he will soon find out. Fortunatly we know that Europe never talks with 'one voice' or present itself as 'a bloc', as it is the prophetic world power out of the prophet Daniël 'clay mixed with iron': One, but always devided.
