Two prominent members of the European Parliament have joined calls from within the assembly for the EU to clarify its position regarding Hezbollah, amid its continued reticence to designate the Lebanese Shiite group as a terrorist organisation. Despite Bulgaria’s announcement of a link between the July 2012 terrorist attack on Israeli tourists in Burgas and Hezbollah.

In a written question to the EU Council this week, Italian MEP and foreign affairs committee Vice Chairman Fiorello Provera and British Conservative MEP Charles Tannock demanded clarification on “what steps are still required in order for the Council to consider designating all wings of Hezbollah as an integral terrorist group.”

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton didn’t issue any statement following a meeting of Europe’s foreign ministers on Monday at which their Bulgarian colleague Nickolay Mladenov briefed them of his country’s investigation revealing a crucial evidence linking Hezbollah to the bus bombing that killed five Israelis and the Bulgaria driver.

At the Brussels meeting, Mladenov reportedly called for “collective measures” to be taken in coordination with all 27 EU member states in retribution for the latest proven terrorist attack on European soil by Hezbollah. But the EU has so far resisted outlawing Hezbollah, due to its prominent position at the heart of the governing Lebanese coalition.

Europe had a “collective responsibility” to “send a strong message to the rest of the world that such attacks are unacceptable no matter where they are planned and who is behind them”, argued Mladenov.

The Bulgarian report of Hezbollah’s role in the attack mentioned that it had been perpetrated by three Lebanese natives in possession of foreign passports - two of them hailing from Canada and one Australian.

Both Israel and the US currently designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, but the EU has so far resisted calls from both parties to adopt a similar course of action, a position believed to have been challenged by Mladenov at the Council of Foreign Affairs meeting on Monday.

The Netherlands is the exception to EU member states in outlawing the group, while Britain distinguishes between its political arm, which it classifies as legitimate, and its military arm which it does not.

Quoting calls by the Israeli and US authorities on the EU to reconsider its position, as well as cautions by Europol Director Rob Wainwright that latest intelligence findings marked “an indication of a real threat both to Israelis and to member of the wider Jewish community”, Provera and Tannock’s question for written answer further demanding clarification of why the EU sought to make a distinction between Hezbollah’s military and political wings, “even though Hezbollah itself makes no such distinction at the top of the organization”.

While confirming that the Bulgarian Foreign Minister had “asked to make a statement about the ongoing situation” regarding Hezbollah, Ashton only committed to looking “very carefully at what he says and what the issues now are”.

In a written question to Ashton earlier this month, another MEP, Michal Tomasz Kaminski, from Poland, questioned why the EU remains “reluctant to call Hezbollah by its proper name”, after Ashton’s official response to the Burgas findings expressed “the need for a reflection over te outcome of the investigation”, with her spokesman further conceding that outlawing the group was merely one of “several options” the EU had to consider.

Calling for further clarification on the other available options at its disposal, Kaminski contended that “our failure to properly define Hezbollah allows the terrorist group to operate in Europe and use our member states as bases for money-laundering and fundraising”. He further quoted the EU’s counterterrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove who said that committing a terrorist attack was “not the only legal requirement that you have to take into consideration, it’s also a political assessment of the context and the timing”.

EJP