EU foreign ministers met Monday in Brussels to discuss how to best deal with inmates from Guantanamo. Last week U.S. President Barack Obama promised he would have the infamous military prison closed down within a year.

Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy diplomat, said Washington could count on Europe.

"This is an American problem that they have to solve, but we'll be ready to help if necessary," he said. "Whenever they ask for help, I think the European answer will be 'Yes.'"

It may not be that easy, however.

While Portugal, Switzerland and Ireland have said they would take in prisoners, and Germany, Finland, France, Spain and Italy are open to the idea, Austria and the Netherlands so far have refused to back the policy.

Britain has said it would help with experience (it already has taken back eight former Guantanamo prisoners), but it's no secret that London feels it already has done enough.

The Bush administration in the past tried to get other EU member states to take in prisoners, but without success. Officials from the Obama administration hope this will change now.

There are two groups of inmates who would need to be relocated: the terror suspects, who should remain in prison, and the non-terror suspects, who can't return home because they could face abuse or torture there, or because their governments are unwilling to take them back.

It's the latter category, roughly 60 individuals from countries like Libya, China and Algeria, who Washington may want to resettle in Europe.

EU member states likely will be able to individually decide whether to take inmates in -- but that won't relieve the 27-member bloc of a joint coordination on the issue. Once taken in by one country, the former inmates, thanks to the Schengen Agreement, would be able to travel and resettle anywhere in the EU.

France on Monday proposed an EU fact-finding mission to Guantanamo to identify a group of inmates who could qualify for European residency.

Some countries are uneasy about taking in inmates who were not terror suspects but who, because of their stay in Guantanamo, possibly have become radicalized.

But observers say Europe has a moral responsibility to help out. Several EU governments have protested against Guantanamo's dubious legal status, which enabled Washington to detain hundreds of terror suspects without trial. Yet secretly, European spies visited the detention center to interrogate suspects and in some cases allegedly cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency in extraordinary rendition cases in Europe, Asia, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said helping out was a "question of our credibility, of whether we support the closing down of this American camp or not."

But Steinmeier, whose center-left Social Democrats long have argued for taking in prisoners, so far has not managed to entirely convince the conservatives of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party.

Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told a German radio station the responsibility to deal with potentially dangerous inmates was "first and foremost with the United States."

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has never been excited about taking in prisoners, but on Tuesday he signaled a willingness to talk with Steinmeier about the issue once the U.S. request comes.

Merkel so far has not commented on the issue, although she has harshly criticized Guantanamo during her years in office.

A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday at his regular news conference Berlin would be prepared to act swiftly once the U.S. request comes.

"You will see -- everything is going to be fine," he said.

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