London, Asharq Al-Awsat—The leaders of France and the UK have failed to convince other members of the European Union to lift its arms embargo on Syria.

This week’s EU summit in Brussels, originally intended to focus on economic and trade issues, was used by Britain and France to attempt to persuade the block of 27 countries to change its policy towards arming the opponents of the Syrian government.

The embargo, which is reviewed every three months, will now be considered again in May, though it is also set to be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Dublin later this month.

Both France’s President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron have advocated supplying arms to the Syrian opposition to counterbalance the government’s superiority in conventional military firepower.

Speaking at a press conference after a meeting of EU leaders on Friday morning, David Cameron said: “Francois Hollande and I have agreed it is also right to look at further changes in terms of the arms embargo because at the moment it is still basically treating the Syrian regime in a pretty similar way to the Syrian opposition.”

Both leaders also sought to allay fears that the weapons would fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

Speaking on Friday, Hollande told reporters that France had received assurances from rebels battling to overthrow the government of Bashar Al-Assad that any weapons they received would remain in their possession and only be used against government forces.

He said: “It’s because we have been given those [guarantees] that we can envisage the lifting of the embargo. We have the certainty on the use of these weapons.”

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said that arms were already reaching the “wrong hands,” and that “it’s important for countries like Britain, France, working with the Americans, working with other allies in the Gulf, to help the opposition, to work with the opposition, to shape the opposition, and to make sure that it is those parts of the opposition that support a democratic and pluralistic Syria, where minorities are properly protected, that those are the organisations getting our help and getting our assistance.”

Both the UK and France have also said that they will consider breaking with the rest of the EU and pursue their own policies towards the conflict in Syria, including supplying weapons to the opposition, though David Cameron stressed that any decision on the issue had yet to be made.

Critics of the plan to arm the rebels argue that British and French plans are unlikely to work, and may prove dangerous. Dr Christopher Phillips, an expert on Syria at Queen Mary University of London, called the policy of arming the Syrian opposition “short–sighted.”

As well as criticizing claims that it would be possible to control where the arms ended up, he told Asharq Al-Awsat that the idea was “born more out of frustration that [the UK and France] are not able to influence events on the ground.”

He also stressed that the UK’s objective of putting more pressure on Assad to negotiate by supplying weapons to the opposition was not feasible, saying: “Assad has lost half his country and is still not willing to negotiate.”

Dr. Phillips, who is a fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East Program, also stated that it was not clear that arming the rebels would actually be enough to allow them to achieve an outright military victory.

Some of these concerns were apparent in the response of the German government to Britain and France’s proposals.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: “I made it clear that we have a whole series of reservations regarding weapons exports to the opposition because we have to ask ourselves whether we are not further fueling the conflict by doing that.”