Government seeks to save Zimbabwe sanctions with compromise over Franco-African summit

The European Union's "smart sanctions" policy against Robert Mugabe and his regime was in danger of dissolving yesterday after disagreements within the EU and determined opposition from African nations.

Britain, which is leading the struggle to save the policy, will offer a compromise at a meeting on Monday. It will press for the flawed regime to be renewed, and in exchange it is prepared to allow Mr Mugabe to attend a Franco-African summit in Paris next month.

It is also willing to allow ministers who are technically banned from travelling to Europe to attend a bigger EU-Africa summit in Lisbon in April – if Mr Mugabe can be persuaded to stay away.

When the sanctions were agreed last February, EU foreign ministers agreed to a visa ban on the most senior members of the regime as well as a freeze on their assets and a ban on the export of equipment that might be used for internal repression. To an extent these have increased the isolation of the regime. But the consensus concealed a divergence of views among the 15 member states with reservations among nations with long-standing interests in Africa.

France's former foreign minister Hubert Védrine said most sanctions were ineffective. But in the run-up to elections EU countries were willing to go along with the British strategy because European election observers had been prevented from doing their work and the EU had to react.

Providing no other EU country objects, France is within its rights to invite Mr Mugabe to Paris for a formal summit. Zimbabweans can attend UN gatherings and international meetings designed to conduct political dialogue or "to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law".

Crucially, Harare has been backed by its African neighbours, which have expressed solidarity and threatened to boycott talks if the Zimbabwean president was excluded.

French officials said Mr Mugabe had been invited with all other African heads of state. Since many of them stood accused of human rights abuses of one kind or another, to single out the Zimbabwean president for exclusion would have been wrong

France and Africa: The story of a special relationship

By John Lichfield

The first Franco-African summit was a meeting between France and its former colonies in 1973, but it has expanded to embrace all African countries.

At the last meeting in Paris in 1998, 49 countries and 35 heads of state attended – including President Robert Mugabe.

The summits have been described as expensive talking shops. Critics say they have done little for African problems or for France's standing in a continent in which it claims a "special relationship".

French officials argued yesterday that the invitation to Mr Mugabe was part of a blanket invitation to African leaders and that it would have been wrong to single him out. Countries such as Libya and Sudan, have been excluded in the past because of UN sanctions.