The team will also explore ways of widening travel and financial sanctions already imposed on Mugabe, his top lieutenants and their families, the diplomats told The Zimbabwean.
The visit follows Russia and China’s weekend decision to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe’s ruling elite.
The countries indicated on Saturday they would not support the resolution proposed by Britain and the US at last week’s G8 summit in Japan because they believed the situation in crisis-torn Zimbabwe did not pose a threat to world security.
Although nine of the 15 Security Council members supported the resolution, Russia and China are two of the council’s five permanent members and so can reject a resolution even if it is passed by the majority.
The Zimbabwean heard that the EU team was expected to visit Zimbabwe’s neighbours such as South Africa, Botswana and others, with diplomatic sources saying it was not yet certain whether the delegation would also visit Harare.
“The team will be led by a high-ranking official of current EU president France and it will investigate how more pressure could be brought to bear on Mugabe and his inner circle,” one diplomat said. “The team will also strongly engage Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries on the issue of sanctions.”
Efforts to obtain comment from the head of the European Commission delegation in Zimbabwe, Louis Michel, were futile. But an official in the embassy denied the delegation was coming to investigate how sanctions could be widened or to cajole SADC to cooperate with Brussels on Zimbabwe.
“Yes, the EU team is coming. I cannot give a specific date but it will certainly be before the end of July. But the issue of sanctions, if ever it becomes a subject, is for the EU’s council of foreign ministers to handle and decide on and not this team that is going to visit the southern Africa region,” he said. Â
EU foreign affairs ministers are scheduled to meet in two weeks, where they are expected to toughen and widen personal sanctions and other measures against the Zimbabwean leadership after Zimbabwe’s controversial June 27 run-off ballot.
At a meeting held in Brussels last month, the EU leaders said they were considering possible additional sanctions against Mugabe and his officials.
The Europeans also promised to dispatch a high-level team to southern Africa to confer with Zimbabwe’s neighbours about the EU’s concerns on Zimbabwe
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