The United Nations will be setting a ''very bad example'' if organisers of a controversial anti-racism conference do not accept a new draft document backed by the European Union, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Tuesday.
EU foreign ministers on Monday put their weight behind a new Dutch proposal for the conference's draft document - the original version of which has caused Italy, Israel, Canada and the United States to pull out of the meet because of anti-semitic phrasing and a clause banning criticism of religious faiths.
Frattini said Italy would be prepared to go back to the table if organisers of the upcoming United Nations World Conference Against Racism accept the 25-paragraph Dutch text instead of the current 250-paragraph document.
But he expressed concerns Tuesday that if the new text is rejected, the equilibrium of the EU could be upset if some member states decide to attend the conference in Geneva on April 20-24 anyway.
''Some countries have aired the hypothesis of remaining at Geneva even if our proposal is not accepted. It would be a pity,'' he said, explaining that the EU members would ''remain as witnesses to something wrong and then vote against it''.
''There is a risk. It would be very serious if that happened,'' he told Repubblica.it.
Frattini reiterated that Italy's decision to become the first EU country to follow Israel, Canada and the US in their boycott was ''to defend the credibility of the UN''.
''The UN is not credible if it presents a document with anti-semitic phrasing'' or containing limits to the freedom of expression, he said.
The UN World Conference Against Racism is a follow-up to the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.
Both the World Jewish Congress and the European Jewish Congress renewed calls for countries to boycott the conference this month.
