25/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - A few days ahead of the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, the Bertelsmann Foundation has published a document, which concludes that any military commitment on the part of the EU and NATO in Iraq would be ill-placed. Entitled "The European Union and Iraq: current dilemmas and recommendations for future action", this study considers that given the lack of legitimacy of current intervention and the incapacity of the interim government, a NATO commitment would be perceived as another form of American occupation. In its own interests, the EU should nonetheless help to stabilise the country and the region. Three authors, Giacomo Luciani, co-director of the Mediterranean programme at the university institution of the Robert Schuman Foundation in Florence, Félix Neugart, researcher at the applied political research centre of Munich and Toby Dodge of the University of Warwick, have put forward various ideas: support the electoral process, decentralisation, federalism, but also to help to set up legal and policing systems, amongst other things. (For the complete version, http: //bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/1374/jsp).