Robert Mugabe: green light given despite an EU travel ban

ZIMBABWE’S President Robert Mugabe will be allowed to visit Paris next week for an African leaders’ summit, European Union governments reluctantly agreed yesterday.

The go-ahead was given despite an EU travel ban on the president, his wife and more than 70 members of his political circle and their families in protest at human rights abuses by Mugabe's regime.

EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels renewed the ban for a year but with a temporary "opt-out" for France, so President Chirac can play host to Mr Mugabe at a Franco-African summit discussing human rights on February 19. Britain's disapproval of the French action was marked by a formal reservation written into the accord expressing "grave concern" a view echoed by Germany, the Netherlands and

Sweden. And, privately, many more EU governments are uncomfortable that Paris is according respectability to a man seen as an international pariah.

But, with enough European discord already on display over Iraq, the temptation to deepen rifts by taking on the French was resisted.

Another potential foreign policy row over Portugal's bid to invite Mr Mugabe to an EU-Africa summit in Lisbon in April was put off, with a decision due tomorrowOK on whether to cancel the meeting altogether. British Prime Minister Tony Blair would certainly boycott the Lisbon gathering if Mr Mugabe attended but ministers are wary of abandoning the entire event and may tolerate the presence of a more lowly representative from Zimbabwe. The renewal of the anti-Mugabe sanctions which will be formally endorsed tomorrowOK includes a freeze on any assets held in EU countries by the 79 people named in the travel ban. British Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock welcomed the decision: "I'm glad EU governments have maintained their resolve.

"Now there is a need to extend sanctions to elements of the business community in Zimbabwe which have strengthened Mugabe's regime." British Prime Minister Tony Blair would certainly boycott the Lisbon gathering if Mr Mugabe attended but ministers are wary of abandoning the entire event and may tolerate the presence of a more lowly representative from Zimbabwe. The renewal of the anti-Mugabe sanctions which will be formally endorsed tomorrowOK includes a freeze on any assets held in EU countries by the 79 people named in the travel ban. British Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock welcomed the decision: "I'm glad EU governments have maintained their resolve.

"Now there is a need to extend sanctions to elements of the business community in Zimbabwe which have strengthened Mugabe's regime." But Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden condemned the sanctions as too weak.