EU Foreign Affairs Council Not Likely to Blacklist Hezbollah

The Bulgarian report suggesting that Hezbollah may have been responsible for last year's Burgas bus bombing will be discussed at the next meeting of EU's Foreign Affairs Council on Monday.

However, no unanimous decision on whether Hezbollah should be blacklisted as a terrorist organization is likely to be made, a diplomatic source has said, according to the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.

"We have all declared that we should launch discussions on our next steps. We all condemned the attack, and terrorism as a whole," the source has said.

"We need a serious and clear assessment of the Bulgarian authorities' findings. The information we expect to receive will be very helpful, but we need more time, we are not able to make a decision now."

On February 18, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov will brief his EU colleagues on the results of the probe into last year's terror attack in Burgas.

Only two EU countries currently label Hezbollah a terrorist organization—the UK and the Netherlands. The UK blacklists only the military wing of the Shiite organization.

Bulgaria's choice of whether to name Hezbollah as standing behind the Burgas bus bombing has been seen as pivotal as to whether the bloc will officially label Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

Israel has thrown the blame on Hezbollah right after the July 18, 2012 attack, a move followed later by the US.