The full text of an internal European Union document on Iran reveals that officials from the bloc are pessimistic about the chances of stopping Iran from getting enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb.

The reflection paper, written by the staff of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, circulated to the EU’s 27 governments last week, concedes that Iran will probably acquire sufficient capacity to enrich uranium for a weapons programme “at some stage”, adding that the programme has been held back by Tehran’s own technical shortcomings, rather than international pressure.