SA, EU summit opens in France

2008-07-25 12:06

Bordeaux - South Africa and the European Union on Friday began their first-ever summit in the French city of Bordeaux, with South Africa set to defend its role as mediator in the Zimbabwean political crisis.

The key event was kicked off by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose nation holds the rotating EU presidency, South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

The top-level meeting has been overshadowed by the political crisis in Zimbabwe and the diametrically opposed stands of Pretoria and Brussels on ways of resolving the crisis.

On Tuesday the EU widened sanctions against Zimbabwe despite a deal brokered by Mbeki between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on talks for a future government, after a widely condemned presidential election and a one-man run-off won by Mugabe.

EU foreign ministers added 37 more people to a list of individuals under a visa ban and whose assets have been frozen, as well as four companies, and threatened further action.

Zimbabwe always on the agenda

A source at the European Commission said: "Zimbabwe is always on the agenda during meetings with the South Africans but we are not expecting anything significant."

But both sides said other key issues would include the situation in African flashpoints in Chad and Sudan's violence-riven Darfur region, the ongoing world trade talks, and the establishment of a free trade area between the European Union and South Africa by 2012.

Bilateral trade has increased more than five-fold between 1994 to 2007 from R56.5bn to R313bn, according to South African figures.

South African exports to the European Union totalled R137bn last year while imports were worth R176bn.

- AFP