BELGIUM: The EU election monitor expelled from Zimbabwe is expected to report to EU foreign ministers when they meet in Brussels today. Mr Pierre Schori, the Swedish head of the fraught observer mission despatched a week ago, spent yesterday resting in London after being escorted under protest onto a flight from Harare.
He has already submitted to the foreign ministers a report on his treatment and the prospects now for the EU's efforts to oversee free and fair elections in Zimbabwe next month.
But the foreign ministers want to hear from him directly before deciding what steps to take in response to President Robert Mugabe's contempt for the EU's concern over democracy and human rights.
The foreign ministers face a major dilemma - whether to impose threatened sanctions over the treatment of Mr Schori, effectively scuppering any monitoring mission, or whether to accept his expulsion in the hope that the remnants of the mission team will be allowed access to the electioneering process.
"It's very tricky," said one EU diplomat. "If we allow Mugabe to get away with kicking out the chosen head of our election monitoring mission, we will look weak in the eyes of his regime.
"On the other hand, the EU's primary aim is to ensure that there are free and fair elections in Zimbabwe, and that may require us to hold off on imposing sanctions in the hope that other members of the EU mission can do an effective job in the run-up to the elections."
The foreign ministers have scope for stalling on sanctions, because they have not issued a deadline: when they met on January 28th they warned that sanctions would be imposed against the Mugabe regime at any stage if he refused to co-operate with the election observation mission.
Mr Schori is from one of six EU member states which Mr Mugabe refuses to acknowledge. The other five are Britain, Germany, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands. The British Government agreed early on not to antagonise the Mugabe regime by insisting on a British election monitor being allowed in as part of the EU team.
Mr Schori was granted a tourist visa when he arrived in Zimbabwe a week ago, but was warned it did not give him the right to make any public statements.
He made it clear that public statements and speaking to the media were part of his function as head of the EU observation mission. On his expulsion he said he was leaving "more in sorrow than of anger".
Paul Cullen adds: Mr Brian Bako, a representative of Zimbabwe's main opposition movement, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), will speak at a meeting in Dublin tonight on "Zimbabwe and the West: Concern for Democracy or Protection of White-owned Farmlands?" in the arts building, Trinity College, room 3126, at 7 p.m.