Lebanese Official: EU Unlikely to Blacklist Hezbollah

Farid Makari, Vice-President of the Lebanese Parliament, believes that the European Union is unlikely to label Hezbollah an outlaw terrorist organization.

"In my personal opinion, at least based on policies we have observed up until now, European states will not classify [Hezbollah] as a terrorist organization," Makari told Al-Monitor.

The official's statement follows last week's Bulgarian report stating that the Hezbollah organization may have been involved in last year's Burgas bus bombing.

"There is a big difference between Hezbollah being placed on the list of terrorist organizations within the European Union — and thus at an international level later on — and it not being included on this list," Makari noted.

He pointed to "the great efforts being made by France and Germany in particular to keep other European countries from condemning Hezbollah as a whole."

"Westerners will coordinate with the Lebanese government. In my opinion, they will find a way to accuse Hezbollah's military wing, and not the party itself, of responsibility for the bombing, as a way to get out of this mess," the Lebanese official added.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov stated last week that Bulgarian investigators had "a well-founded assumption" that the perpetrators of the deadly attack belonged to the military formation of Hezbollah.