Foreign ministers beef up statement of support by EU

Britain, Germany and other principal nations brushed aside anxieties from several smaller countries over the bombing of Afghanistan to force through a firm declaration of EU solidarity with the United States.

Representatives of Europe's big players closed ranks behind the campaign at a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg yesterday, two days before their heads of state and government meet in Ghent.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, conceded that anxieties about the bombing had been raised but said that the worries were shared by Britain and America.

The result was a rebuff for the Belgian presidency of the EU, whose text was toughened by agreement among Europe's bigger member states. One EU official argued: "Just about all members recognised that the original text was not coherent with what the foreign ministers said last Monday or with the reality of the moment."

On the insistence of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, the first sentence of the document, declaring it was "perfectly in solidarity" with the United States, was beefed up to "in total solidarity" when the early draft was systematically toughened.

Yesterday's document also went further than before in spelling out the post-Taliban future for Afghanistan, stressing the importance of a role for the United Nations, the need for reconstruction and the need for a stable, legitimate and representative government.

The chairman of yesterday's meeting, Louis Michel, the Belgian Foreign Minister, was on the defensive after interviews in the local media in which he criticised Tony Blair and his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi.

Belgium is embroiled in a separate row with America after it did not make available to the CIA evidence seized during the arrests of four terrorism suspects in Brussels. Two of the men were released, apparently without the knowledge of the US authorities. President George Bush was thought to have raised the lack of co-operation with Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Prime Minister.

Mr Michel, who has described Mr Blair as "too bellicose" and accused him of "over-acting", refused to elaborate on his comments yesterday. Nor would he discuss a TV appearance in which he ranked the performance of Mr Berlusconi with that of the Taliban – though his Italian colleague, Renato Ruggiero, protested at a private discussion.

Inside the meeting there was no call for a pause in the bombing and Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister, was low-key, although she has urged America to report "as soon as possible and as honestly as possible all the problems".

Across Europe, the Green Party has expressed growing reservations at the civilian casualties caused by the strikes.