EU seeks ‘creative option’ in bid to revive Africa talks

By David Cronin

Date: 19/05/05

Removing Zimbabwe as an obstacle to top-level dialogue between Europe and Africa has been identified as a "primary aim" by EU diplomats.

In the past week, the secretariat at the Council of Ministers has circulated a plan to EU governments on developing a "strategic partnership" with the 53-country African Union (AU).

It suggests that the EU should consider any "creative option" to holding a summit between European and African leaders at the earliest opportunity.

The only such gathering so far was held in 2000. A subsequent meeting scheduled for Lisbon in 2003 was cancelled after many EU countries threatened to boycott should Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's autocratic president, attend.

Because the UK has promised to make Africa and climate change the top two priorities of its EU presidency in the second half of this year, it is keen that a summit be held.

Yet British diplomats have also argued that such a gathering must not be dominated by the Zimbabwe question.

Alba Lamberti from the International Crisis Group said it would be wrong to hold such an event without tangible improvements in Zimbabwe's human rights situation.

Lamberti said: "The boycott of summits is one of the few instruments the European Union has to apply pressure on Zimbabwe. "Every time Mugabe has had an opportunity to sidestep the travel ban on him, he has exploited it - as he did for the Pope's funeral."

The Council paper also urges that there should be a more systematic consultation between the European Commission and the Commission of the African Union than there is at present.

In particular, the paper advocates that the AU could play a role in facilitating contacts between the EU and countries deemed to have flouted the human rights and democracy clauses in the Cotonou agreement, which underpins Europe's ties with the African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc.

l EU foreign ministers are expected next week to signal their readiness to provide police and transport equipment - including air observation support - to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region.

The focus of the EU offer will be on how it can improve co-ordination between the police and military components of the AU operation. An EU assessment mission found severe shortcomings in the operation earlier this year.

The ministers' meeting in Brussels on 23 May is also set to impose UN sanctions freezing the financial assets of members of the Khartoum government. This follows the 29 March resolution of the UN Security Council, condemning the Sudanese government, the Janjaweed militia and rebel groups for failing to halt the violence in Darfur.

Anticipation of talks on the European Union's relations with Africa at a meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council, 23-24 May 2005. The secretariat at the Council of Ministers had circulated a plan to EU Governments beforehand on developing a 'strategic partnership' with the 53-country African Union (AU). Other items on the agenda were the option of holding a summit between European and African leaders, including the issue of relations with Zimbabwe and the African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region.