The EU expressed concern yesterday about the tense diplomatic stand-off between the US and China and said it hoped for a swift resolution of the dispute.
There was "a very worrisome escalation process going on and I would like to express my hope that things will work out in this area on the basis of case law", said the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr Goran Persson, whose country currently holds the six-month EU presidency.
"But if things reach a stalemate in this particular problem, things can get worse and we don't want them to," Mr Persson said after a meeting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
European leaders have generally kept a low profile during the incident. Earlier this week, the EU foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, said the EU had "no common position" on the issue. But the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, yesterday urged China to return the US spy plane and its crew.
Mr Persson played down fears, repeated by the French Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, about the Bush administration and its perceived preference for unilateral moves on the diplomatic front. "We have every reason to see the United States as an ally in the world arena . . . But there is no reason to speak softly when we feel the US stance is completely wrong, as on, say, the Kyoto protocol," he said.
The EU has strongly criticised President Bush's decision to abandon the 1997 Kyoto agreement, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Jospin criticised the Bush administration yesterday, saying it acted in its own interest on many issues while ignoring its partners on the international scene. "I have the impression that this administration is not isolationist but unilateralist," he said in an interview with a group of 15 French regional daily newspapers.
Mr Jospin criticised the refusal by Mr Bush to back the Kyoto protocol on global warming as a "very harmful unilateral act" because the subject "is about the planet's survival".
Among other subjects of concern were trade problems, transatlantic relations, strategic and nuclear matters including the National Missile Defence ("Star Wars") programme. "Europe must express itself, say what it thinks, send messages," Mr Jospin said.
Mr Jospin said the Clinton administration "espoused American power but was attentive to other realities and other civilisations". The Bush administration, on the other hand, was "apparently not taking into account at this stage the rules that make the international community function", he said.