Buitenlands beleid Spanje maakt draai van 180 graden (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Just one day after being elected, Spain's new leader, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has managed to turn his country's foreign policy of the last eight years on its head.

In an interview on Monday (15 March), the prime minister-elect promised to revive relations with France and Germany and change his country's position on Iraq.

In the strongest terms possible he criticised UK prime minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush for the war in Iraq.

He said it "was a disaster and the occupation continues to be a disaster".

"You cannot organise a war with lies. Bush and Blair should do some self-criticism to avoid repeating what has happened".

These statements are a million miles away from former prime minister José Maria Aznar's - who ruled the country until last weekend for the past eight years.

Mr Aznar was a staunch ally of Mr Bush and made his country one of the most pro-US in western Europe - the former prime minister attended the infamous 'war summit', with the US president and Mr Blair, just days before the start of the war.

He also committed around 1,300 Spanish troops to the region - troops which Mr Zapatero has now said should be withdrawn by June if there is no United Nations resolution.

New camp alignments?

Mr Zapatero's words have met with a cool reception from London but may cause a whole set of realignments in Europe.

By stating his allegiance to Paris and Berlin, he has put his country firmly back in what US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously dismissed 'Old Europe'.

It could also reopen the damaging divisions that Europe saw in the run up to the war. While Germany, France and Belgium were opposed to the Iraq invasion, the UK, Spain, Denmark, Portugal and most of the new member states supported the US' position.

Subsequent efforts to forge an EU common foreign policy were scuppered by the divisions - which also affected talks between the 25 current and future member states to try and agree a Constitution for Europe.