MADRID: An agreement reached on Friday by the EU justice ministers to negotiate a treaty on judicial cooperation with the UStates highlights differences between the EU and US regarding human rights and the fight against terrorism and organised crime.

The justice ministers stressed that the economic and social roots of terrorism and wars must be attacked, and said that every international military operation must be carried out on the mandate of the United Nations, rather than unilaterally.

The justice ministers of the 15 EU countries reached the agreement at a meeting in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

In recent days, the US policy against terrorism has been questioned by European officials like the EU commissioner of external affairs, Chris Patten, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, and Germany’s ministers of foreign relations and defence, Joschka Fischer and Rudolf Scharping.

The justice ministers said they agreed on the need to hash out a “political accord” to negotiate a treaty on extradition and police and judicial cooperation with the United States, but one that would “safeguard European principles and values.”

The treaty should contain guarantees of fair trial and safeguards that people extradited to the United States will not be sentenced to death, said Spanish Justice Minister Angel Acebes, who presided over the meeting in Santiago de Compostela.

“Any accord reached with the United States should take into account the limits, in the context of respect for fundamental rights and liberties, set out in the laws and constitutions of the members of the (European) Union, as well as all legal guarantees,” said Acebes.

French Defence Minister Alain Richard said Bush’s remarks revealed “a maximalist tendency,” and Scharping stressed that “the United States will learn that the fight against terrorism is not only a military one, and that in the future it will need friends and partners.”

European critics of Washington’s foreign policy also referred to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. “We Europeans do not agree with Washington’s Middle East policy, and we believe it is an error to support Ariel Sharon’s policy of pure repression,” said French Foreign Minister Hubert Vidrine.

But what most upsets Europeans is the scarce importance Washington puts on the positions taken by its allies. “Despite all the differences in weight and size, alliances between democracies are not based on follow-the-leader. Partners is one thing, and satellite countries is another,” said Fischer.

On Feb 8, Jospin warned the United States not give in to ”the strong temptation of unilateralism.”Unilateral decisions taken by the United States during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and Afghanistan this year even ruffled feathers within the NATO, in which the United States and Europe play a predominant role.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson reacted in irritation to statements by US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz, according to whom the alliance determines the mission, but does not carry it out. Robertson, a British national, said an ongoing coalition is always better than a provisional one, and added that he was prepared to “reinvent” NATO to keep the United States from applying unilateral decisions.

Acebes noted that the treaty on judicial and police cooperation between the European Union and the United States would be a pioneer agreement, because so far external relations on the legal front have been a question left up to each European member state.—Dawn/InterPress Service.