Europe’s Who’s Who Come to Dinner for Talks With Blair

A host of European leaders swept into London on Sunday for dinner with Prime Minister Tony Blair and a chance to discuss the war on terrorism.

French President Jacques Chirac, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder arrived at Blair’s Downing Street residence about 8 p.m.

A little earlier, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived for the talks on the U.S.-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan.

Belgium holds the revolving EU presidency. Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok was a late arrival, and absentee Portugal raised a lone voice in protest.

“Initiatives of this type contribute neither to the cohesion of the anti-terrorist coalition, nor to European unity,” a Portuguese Cabinet source said in Lisbon, adding that such limited meetings among EU nations “should not set a precedent.”

Blair’s official spokesman played down ideas that a new initiative was imminent, but the many officials who trailed behind each leader suggested that some serious talks were ahead.

The spokesman said Britain believed that the military campaign was on track and had progressed to hitting the Taliban’s front-line troops.

Sensitive to criticism of indiscriminate U.S. bombing, he said the strikes were carefully targeted.

Blair, Washington’s staunchest ally in its retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, wants to hear the leaders’ observations.

The next few days will see several diplomatic discussions as Western powers ponder the next move against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and Osama bin Laden, Washington’s prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“It’s a good opportunity for everybody to update themselves,” the spokesman told reporters.

He said Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Spain were the five EU countries ready and able to make “a major military contribution.”

On Wednesday, Blair will fly to Washington on the supersonic Concorde for a lightning visit to brief President Bush on his trip to the Middle East last week.

The British prime minister won little sympathy during talks in Damascus, Syria, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan.

Chirac will be in Washington to meet Bush a day before Blair, Schroeder has just returned from China and Russia, and Verhofstadt and Solana will meet Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat today.