The European Union (EU) governments on Monday decided to blacklist the armed wing of Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

The decision was reached at the foreign ministers' meeting of the EU in Brussels, local media reported.

"We cannot allow the military wing of Hezbollah to carry out any terrorist activities here in the European Union," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told reporters before the meeting.

It will now become illegal for EU countries to fund the group and for Euopean diplomats to meet its military staff. However, the bloc will maintain links with the political wing of the organization, which once dominated the last Lebanese cabinet along with its allies.

The move came one year after a bomb attack against Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in which six people died. In February, Bulgaria investigators said the attack was linked to Hezbollah.

US and Israeli officials have been calling on Europe to blacklist the group for years. However, the group's recent involvement in the conflicts in neighbouring Syria, in support of President Bashar al-Assad, has finally made some reluctant EU members change their positions.

Last week, Lebanon urged Brussels not to blacklist Hezbollah on the grounds that the militant group was an "essential component of Lebanese society."