European Parliament President Mr Pat Cox threw his backing today behind a special EU summit on Iraq, although diplomats said the idea was on ice given deep divisions within the bloc.
Mr Cox said, ahead of a crucial report by UN weapons inspectors on February 14th, that EU leaders must "show leadership, determination and resolve at this testing time for the EU, for EU-US relations and for the international community".
EU citizens expected "a determined, coherent and consensual European effort from the highest political level to ensure respect for the United Nations" and to get Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to disarm, Mr Cox added.
But with no sign emerging that EU countries can agree on how to handle Saddam, the drive by the bloc's Greek presidency to convene a special summit on Iraq appears to be foundering.
"We're going to wait for February 14th," a Greek official said in reference to what will be a crucial presentation to the UN Security Council by chief weapons inspector Mr Hans Blix.
The Greeks had been waiting for Wednesday's address to the Security Council by US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell before deciding their next step.
But the reactions to Mr Powell's presentation on Iraq by the four EU member states with seats on the Security Council - Britain, France, Germany and Spain - showed the bloc as split as ever.
Britain and Spain stuck to their support for the US over Iraq while France and Germany insisted that Mr Powell had shown nothing new to justify attacking Saddam's regime.
Meanwhile Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the head of the convention drafting a constitution for the future expanded EU, also said it was "urgent" that the Union speak with one voice.
"I feel an urgent need to act because the situation is not acceptable," he said, after presenting the latest draft of articles of a constitution, one of whose aims will be boost coordination of joint foreign policy.
The former French president said the EU was the third most important political bloc in the world, but the only one without a single political voice.
"It is urgent that we take action to ensure that happens," he said. "It's a problem of shared political will. We have to develop the reflex to think in European terms.
"At the moment there is not a European reflex. Sometimes Europe suffers as a result." Mr Cox said the latest results of the convention illustrated the gulf between political will and reality.