The Spanish, French and Italian Plan

"Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene," according to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero reported by the BBC World Service. The Spanish Prime Minister made these comments following talks with visiting French President Jacques Chirac.

Mr Zapatero added that the plan would be presented to the EU Council in December for approval. According to the BBC, Mr Zapatero said: "We want to launch a joint initiative on the Middle East situation and push it through at EU level, preferably with Germany and Britain."

He added: "We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes... Violence has reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community."

The proposal would include an immediate ceasefire in the occupied Palestinian territories, an exchange of prisoners, an international peace conference on Middle East peace, and the resumption of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

The three countries are also calling for the formation of a national unity Palestinian government, and the dispatch of a fact-finding mission to the region, Mr Zapatero said. For his part, Mr Chirac said the EU must act in the face of "the increasingly dramatic situation in the Middle East and in Palestine in particular.

"We are going to act jointly with the Spanish and Italian governments, with the co-operation of the EU to try to initiate the indispensable moral and political reforms in the Middle East," he added.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, the Palestinians or the United States. However, reports have indicated that Israel has already dismissed the plan, saying that at most Italy, France and Spain were discussing "some Spanish ideas".

Israel was irked by the fact that the three EU countries did not consult it. Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, was reported to have told her Spanish counterpart, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, that it was unacceptable for an initiative concerning Israel to be launched without co-ordination with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has said that the new Middle East peace initiative drafted by Spain, France and Italy was not co-ordinated with Israel for fear that Jerusalem would reject it.

Reports, fed by the Israeli press, that fissures had already appeared between Italian Prime Minister Roman Prodi and Mr Chirac and Mr Zapatero are absolutely not true, given that the Italian Premier was in constant contact with his colleagues and that he supported this plan as an extension of the European presence in Lebanon in which there is already a strong Italian and French contingent. He also called it a plan to pacify the region.

It is not to be excluded that some EU member states may not be willing to go along with this plan. In such a situation it is important that those willing should push ahead as a coalition of peacemakers. The rest will join them later.