A key European Union and Africa summit remains under a shadow cast by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose attendance is demanded by African leaders but could spark a boycott by Britain.
The EU’s Portuguese presidency insists that the summit, which would unite more than 70 heads of state and government, will take place as planned in Lisbon on December 8 and 9, but preparations are going slowly, to say the least.
”The invitations haven’t been sent. We’re talking,” Portugal’s European Affairs Minister, Manuel Lobo Antunes, said recently.
In fact, through no fault of its own, Portugal is confronted with the same obstacle that caused what would have been only the second EU-Africa summit to be postponed indefinitely in 2003.
Britain insists there should be no invitation to Mugabe, who along with senior Zimbabwean officials is banned from travelling in the 27 EU countries for human rights abuses. African leaders reject this as discrimination.
The summit will take place ”with all members of the African Union”, Akwasi Asei-Adjei, the Foreign Minister of Ghana and current chairperson of the AU, underlined on Wednesday. It’s time that Europe tried ”to understand Africa”, he said.
The Europeans are tempted to try for a compromise ”Myanmar-style”, by proposing that Zimbabwe be represented at a lower level, as happens with Myanmar at EU-Asia summits, because leaders of the junta are banned. But this has been ruled out by the Africans.
Portugal, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of the year, will have to send out invitations to all — including Mugabe — and ”hope there’s a problem with transport”, one EU source said.
Because if the 83-year-old hard-liner does come, ”it’s quite possible that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and one or two other European leaders, won’t turn up”, an EU diplomat said, also on condition of anonymity.
Privately, Britain has already brandished the threat of a boycott.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband made London’s position clear about the leader of its former colony last week at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers. ”He told them that the PM would not be there if Mugabe goes,” an official close to the in-camera talks said.
Publicly, Miliband said: ”I don’t think anyone wants to be part of a media circus in December. I think we all want a successful summit, but we are also very, very concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe.”
The reality is that no one wants Mugabe to become the focus of an EU-Africa summit meant to concentrate on building proper economic and political ties between the two blocs.
”Even Mugabe himself has no interest in this happening, because of the very serious problems his country is mired in at the moment,” another diplomat said.
Zimbabwe’s economy is in crisis with inflation running well past the 7 500% mark and high unemployment. At least 80% of the population live below the poverty threshold and the economy has shrunk by more than one-third.
For the Europeans, seven years after the only such summit in Cairo in 2000, the aim is to strengthen relations with a continent where their historic influence is increasingly under threat from China.
And the Africans want far more from this summit than a spat over Mugabe. ”We really want this summit. It’s very important, above all, for our economic development,” one African diplomat noted. — Sapa-AFP