BRUSSELS: Europe will not willingly pay for the reconstruction of Iraq if the US does not obtain United Nations authority for war, Chris Patten, the EU external relations commissioner, has warned.

Signalling a slightly more confident tone over a crisis which has deeply divided the union, Mr Patten said it would be hard to persuade Europeans to pick up the tab if President George Bush acted unilaterally to disarm Saddam Hussein.

The EU, the world’s biggest aid donor, is already paying billions of euros to help rebuild Afghanistan after the US-led campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The US is drawing up plans for post-Saddam Iraq while an apprehensive EU is quietly looking at its role — but also cautioning that it should not be taken for granted.

“I would find it much more difficult to get the approval of member states and the European parliament if the military intervention that had occasioned the need for development aid did not have a UN mandate,” the former Tory party chairman said on Monday.

“This isn’t provocative. This is describing what is a likely situation. I see every possible argument for trying to go through the UN if it’s at all humanly possible.

“In Afghanistan we are the biggest provider of reconstruction assistance after the conflict, but everybody supported the conflict.”

The EU has earmarked euros15m for humanitarian aid to Iraq this year, but would be expected to contribute far more than that after a war. Senior commission officials are due in Washington this week to discuss contingency plans.

The British commissioner made waves last year when he accused the US in a Guardian interview of going into “unilateralist overdrive” since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Now he wants EU leaders to close ranks — despite differences between Tony Blair, Mr Bush’s closest ally, and Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder, who opposes war — and use their collective clout to persuade Washington to act multilaterally. By coincidence, four EU member states currently have seats on the UN security council — Britain and France as permanent members, and Germany and Spain occupying two of the 10 rotating seats.

“People may argue that the UN is not perfect. Doubtless it is not, but it’s the only UN we’ve got,” said Mr Patten. There would be great difficulty in persuading British or European public opinion that we should intervene militarily in Iraq unless there was the stamp of international approval through the UN.

“Opinion polls suggest that and what people are saying suggests that. It isn’t just the left wing of the Labour party which is articulating its worries and reservations. There are worries across the board.”

Diplomats suggested last night that Mr Patten was exaggerating the extent of the EU’s leverage over the US in threatening to withhold reconstruction aid, since Iraq, with its vast oil reserves, is a far wealthier country than Afghanistan.—Dawn/ The Guardian News Service.