In Madrid on Friday, European Commission officials and EU ministers will discuss their response to "Plan Colombia", an ambitious programme, backed by both Washington and Colombia's President Pastrana, which aims to eradicate the country's twin plagues of drugs and violence. Its critics fear, however, the plan may have the reverse effect. The EU is being asked to contribute $1 billion towards pacification projects. Last week, the US Senate voted through $1.3 billion in military aid for the counternarcotics side of the programme.
Colombian non-governmental organisations, whose involvement is critical to implementing the programmes Europe may fund, are unlikely to attend Friday's gathering. Neither they, nor local authorities in the regions for which Plan Colombia funding is intended, were consulted when the blueprint was drawn up in Washington and Bogota. Many sections of Colombia's civil society disagree radically with their government's espousal of US military aid in the anti-drugs programme.
These groups are rarely in agreement with the guerrillas of the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). However, NGOs largely accept the guerrillas' position that the imminent US aerial fumigation in Putumayo, supported by US-trained anti-narcotics battalions, will bury all hope of a continuation of peace talks.
Guerrillas and civilians are also in agreement on alternatives to the US plan. Last week, in the humid Colombian village of Los Pozos, Mr Manuel Marulanda, the FARC's legendary 70-year-old leader, welcomed diplomats from Europe, Canada, Japan, the Vatican and the United Nations, who came to discuss the group's proposals for ending Colombian drug cultivation.
The FARC spokesman, Mr Raul Reyes, outlined details of a pilot programme to eradicate almost 9,000 hectares of coca cultivation over three years. The rebels want to develop rural employment projects for peasants who now grow drugs.
The United States refused to attend the Los Pozos drug summit. President Clinton, meanwhile, has been twisting arms, from London to Dublin to Brussels, in support of Plan Colombia. The EU security representative and former secretary general of NATO, Mr Javier Solana, turned up in Bogota for a press conference that coincided with the Los Pozos summit, and announced confirmation of European support for Plan Colombia.
However, EU member-states are not necessarily expected to back Plan Colombia next Friday. The presence in Los Pozos of ambassadors and experts from over 20 countries, who sat in the sweltering heat for two days to listen to coca farmers explain the political and economic factors that have forced them to grow drugs, suggests European governments still have serious doubts about the plan. The meeting in Madrid is an opportunity to argue that the solutions to Colombia's decades of war and drug-trafficking lie through dialogue and development, rather than chemical spray planes and helicopter-gunships.