ZAGREB: Eastern European countries reacted with fury and dismay on Tuesday after being summarily ordered by France to hold their tongues on Iraq and toe the Franco-German line of resistance to the US.

The former communist countries due to join the EU next year, or hoping to do so soon, endorsed an emergency summit declaration from Brussels on Monday giving Saddam Hussein a “final opportunity” to comply with UN demands.

But outrage at remarks by President Jacques Chirac late on Monday, attacking as “infantile” and “reckless” EU candidates’ support for the US, echoed across the continent.

Poland’s prime minister, Leszek Miller, stayed away from Tuesday’s meeting of the 13 candidate countries in Brussels, angry that he had not been asked to attend the summit proper. The European Commission and current member states were appalled.

Chris Patten, the EU’s external relations commissioner, said union members were entitled to their own views.

A senior Czech official complained that the eight eastern countries joining the EU next year had been under intolerable pressure from Brussels and Berlin and were being bullied into toeing the Franco-German line on Iraq.

“We’ve spent the past 10 years trying to get into both the EU and Nato. It’s vital for us to keep in both the EU and Nato. But the Americans are pressing us to make a choice one way and the Germans the other.

“Not so long ago we were being told Berlin wanted a European Germany. Now it seems (the EU) is to be a German Europe.”

The Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians joined Mr Blair and four others in signing the “gang of eight” letter in support of President Bush, while another 10 countries in eastern Europe and the Balkans issued a declaration backing the Americans.

The east Europeans respond that Germany’s anti-war line, initially an electoral tactic by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, was not squared with EU allies.

Mr Chirac singled out Bulgaria and Romania for criticism, warning that support for the US was jeopardizing their chances of being admitted to the EU.

Mr Chirac’s fury was widely seen as betraying France’s deep anxiety at the way the club it helped to found will change beyond recognition when it takes in 10 new members next May — as well as mounting anger at the distinction made by Donald Rumsfeld, who dismissed France and Germany as “old Europe” compared to the friendlier “new” easterners.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.