Yet another example of just how pointless multilateral action with Europe is. As I noted awhile ago, the European Union imposed a travel ban on Zimbabwe officials as punishment for the government’s increasingly authoritarian ways. But they weren’t enforcing it. Zimbabwe officials were being allowed to travel to Europe to attend international conferences.
So the Europeans came up with a two-pronged approach in response to criticism. Apparently they are now going to enforce the ban, but move international conferences to non-European nations.
According to this story in the Daily Telegraph (UK),
EU foreign ministers were supposed to hold a meeting with the Southern African Development Community in Copenhagen on Nov 7 and 8. But several delegations from the 14-nation African bloc hinted that they would boycott the gathering unless the Zimbabwean government was included.
Rather than cancelling the summit – or simply going ahead regardless – the European Union agreed to move the entire meeting to Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, making a mockery of the travel ban. The decision to switch the location is a slap in the face of the European Parliament, which passed a unanimous resolution last month demanding that Mr Mudenge be banned from the meeting.
Appeasment will apparently be the EU’s official pastime.
Source:
EU talks moved so Zimbabwe can attend. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph (UK), October 24, 2002.