The Middle East and the various conflicts in the region have always attracted much attention from abroad. However, during the cold war the opportunities of the European Community to influence politics in the Middle East were severely constrained by the global conflict's overlay. Despite this the Middle East has since the beginning of European Political Co-operation (EPC) continuously been a central area of concern -partly due to historical, political and economic reasons, and partly due to the geographical proximity. The end of the cold war heightened the expectations to the European Union (EU) as an actor in the world community considerably, and now a very central question for the EU is whether it can convert its economic capabilities into political power beyond its immediate borders. Will the European Union for example be able to play a bigger role in the solution of conflicts in the Middle East? The treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam have in the 1990s opened this debate further, and the tragic conflicts in the Balkans have served to underline the need for a clearer and more independent European foreign policy profile. The debate is far from over, and the topic will without doubt also be a central issue in the upcoming intergovernmental conference to be held in Nice by the end of 2000. In the light of these recent developments, this article seeks to explore the development of European policy towards the conflict in South Lebanon in the period from 1986 until the present day. Lebanon, and especially the conflict with Israel in its southern part, represents a part of the overall Arab-Israeli conflict, which has dominated politics in the Middle East for the past 50 years. Therefore it can serve as an illustrative case of the possibilities and limitations to a greater involvement of the European Union in the Middle East.
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