Brussels  - The European Union flirted with chaos Monday as top diplomats complained about a "cliquey" response to the recession and failed to agree on the use of community funds to aid economic recovery.

"I must admit I'm extremely worried about the EU's institutional chaos. Never in the EU's history has there been a period like this with so many cliques," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said after regular talks in Brussels with his EU counterparts.

Brussels - The European Union's unity was left foundering on Monday as six mid-weight member states protested against the growing tendency to hold mini-summits of selected members, just days ahead of a full emergency summit on the economic crisis.

"I must admit I'm extremely worried about the EU's institutional chaos. Never in the EU's history has there been a period like this with so many cliques," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said after a regular meeting with EU counterparts.

Brussels - Ambitious plans to kickstart the European Union's economy by putting 5 billion euros (6.3 billion dollars) of community funds into high-tech projects went back to the drawing board Monday, as EU foreign ministers argued over where the money should come from.

Failure to reach an agreement on the proposal would represent a major embarrassment for European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who has called it a key part of the bloc's response to the economic crisis.

Ministers meeting in Brussels agreed that the money should not come out of the EU's budget for 2008, as had been originally proposed by the EU's executive, but failed to agree on alternative sources of funding, diplomatic sources said.

Brussels - Officials in Brussels on Monday urged European Union governments to back their plans for a 600-million-euro (756-million-dollar) plan designed to boost ties with their former-Soviet neighbours.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's external affairs commissioner, said the bloc's so-called "Eastern Partnership" had become even more necessary in the wake of the August conflict between Georgia and Russia and January's gas standoff between Russia and Ukraine.

Brussels - NATO on Monday condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the terrorist attack in Cairo that killed a French woman and injured several Europeans and Egyptian civilians.

"There can be no justification for this cowardly and pointless attack," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement issued by the alliance's headquarters in Brussels.

Brussels - Sri Lanka's government and the Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE) sh