The European Union promises to actively participate in the settlement in Georgia

The lowest common denominator of the positions of 27 EU countries was the final decision adopted on Wednesday at the Council of EU Foreign Ministers. It is based on a document that French President Nicolas...

The lowest common denominator of the positions of 27 EU countries was the final decision adopted on Wednesday at the Council of EU Foreign Ministers. It is based on a document that French President Nicolas Sarkozy presiding over the EU agreed at the highest level with the Georgian and Russian sides. The EU is determined to be "very actively involved" in efforts to bring peace to the conflict zone.

The document adopted by the EU has no legal force, but France, Great Britain and Belgium, which chairs the UN Security Council, will propose it as a draft resolution.

This was announced at a press conference following a protracted meeting, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. “Only in this way can this document gain legal force,” he said.

The main goal for the near future, he called the actual observance of the ceasefire by the parties.

High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana added that the EU expects to send its observers to the conflict zone, who, together with the OSCE, will "contribute on the spot and in practice" to the observance of the truce. The EU will send humanitarian aid to the region and will participate in the restoration of what was destroyed. “The second stage,” Solana emphasized, “will be the achievement of a political solution. "It will take a lot of time, but we have to start, because the frozen conflicts are turning into real ones," he said.

We are not talking about sending armed EU peacekeeping forces, and the status and real powers of "observers" or "controllers" have to be clarified. The EU foreign ministers will deal with this, as well as international issues arising from the conflict, at their informal meeting on 6 September in Avignon.