(BRUSSELS) - France has broken an EU taboo by admitting contacts with Hamas amid concern that the ban on talks with the Palestinian militants could hinder Middle East peace efforts, experts said Monday.

The decision to acknowledge the meetings is also based on a new reality on the ground, as Egypt struggles to mediate between Hamas and Israel to secure a truce in the strife-torn Gaza Strip, they said.

"These are not relations, they are contacts," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Europe 1 radio. "We are not the only ones to have them. We are not charged with any kind of negotiation."

Officially, contacts with Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the EU, United States and Israel, are banned as long as it does not recognise Israel and past peace agreements and renounce violence.

This is a "principle" of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet -- the EU, Russia, United States and United Nations -- and routinely recalled in public by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Despite this, Russia and non-EU nation Norway do have official contacts.

Kouchner defended the talks as essential to ensuring that French envoys can enter Gaza, as it labours under an Israeli blockade slapped on Hamas almost a year ago after it seized power.

"All that Bernard Kouchner has done is admit in public what everybody is thinking in private," said Graham Watson, leader of the liberal bloc in the European Parliament.

That is, he said: "There can be no solution to the Middle East conflict without dialogue with Hamas."

Kouchner has "drawn attention to an open secret," said Dominique Moisi, director of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), based in Paris.

"The fact that there have been contacts with Hamas is not surprising, it's only the fact that he says it that might be so," the expert said.

According to Socialist MEP Veronique de Keyser, Europe's "anti-Hamas front began collapsing" in March, when Brussels and Washington backed Egypt's efforts to mediate a truce, through Hamas, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and Israel.

Other senior EU officials like Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the bloc's rotating presidency, have also made allusions to possible contacts with Hamas.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair's chief of staff has also called for talks with Hamas, even as the British government reiterated Monday its attachment to Quartet principles.

Italy's last foreign minister Massimo D'Alema was also keen on talks.

However the return of Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister means that negotiating with the Islamist movement would be tantamount to "the betrayal of Israel," said Stefania Craxi, Italy's secretary of state for foreign affairs.

Others are concerned that negotiations with Hamas could give the impression that the EU believes talks between Israel and the Palestinians have no future, and they would rather support regional dialogue than start a new one.

But not disregarding the official EU line, Moisi said, "there has always been a sort of realisation that there won't be any solution without some contact with Hamas."

It has only been decided that contacts should not be officially recognised so as not to gift Hamas "the victory of open negotiations without demanding concessions", the expert said.

"But to win concessions, you must have contacts," he underlined.

He said the Egyptian-mediated talks "could be a test", which might allow "a second phase" in which Hamas would be recognised officially, on condition that it prove it can control its forces and stop rocket attacks on Israel.

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