EU to tackle world's hotspots

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi will attend EU foreign ministers summit

By European Political Editor Robin Oakley

LONDON, England (CNN) -- European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday have a fair number of hot political potatoes on their plate. They also have a surprise new face in their line-up.

The other 14 foreign ministers will be joined by Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Following the resignation of his former foreign minister Renato Ruggiero, Berlusconi has decided that he will do the job as well as his own for a while. The millionaire prime minister is not, apparently, putting in for two salaries.

The floundering Middle East peace process is one problem the 15 will tackle early. An EU mission to the area in 2001 achieved little. Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged the EU to stop giving money to the Palestinian Authority, saying it would only be spent on arms.

Some EU diplomats are considering whether they should now demand recompense from Israel for the 18 million dollars worth of EU-funded projects in the Palestinian Authority they estimate to have been destroyed by Israeli troops in retaliation raids for terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens.

But the EU has also been warning Yasser Arafat, now under fire from U.S. President George W. Bush as well, that the funds which the EU provides could be cut unless he does more to curb terrorism. The key decision this week for the EU is whether to impose sanctions on Robert Mugabe and his government in Zimbabwe. European leaders are demanding an end to political violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe.

Following a recent visit to Brussels by Foreign Minister Stanislaus Mudenge and other members of the Zimbabwe government the EU demanded further assurances that international observers will be free to observe and international journalists free to report on the presidential elections in Zimbabwe due to be held on March 9.

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The EU wanted the invitation and accreditation of international observers at least six months before the election. But few European diplomats are expecting to get the assurances they have sought and they know the time is approaching when they will have to back up their threats to impose sanctions. Diplomats have been seeking further clarification from Zimbabwe over the weekend.

Monday’s meeting is the first General Affairs Council, as the foreign ministers’ get-togethers are called, under the presidency of Spain, whose Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has promised to make the fight against terrorism a priority.

Spain also hopes to use its six months in the chair to press on with the programme to enlarge the EU from 15 to 25 countries, with a work programme designed to ensure that negotiations are complete for most by the end of 2002.

Other subjects expected to be discussed at the foreign ministers meeting include EU aid to Afghanistan, relations with Russia over its Baltic port of Kaliningrad, which is cut off from the rest of Russia by Poland and Lithuania, and the Western Balkans.

The ministers are expected to discuss the setting up of an EU force to take over the work of the U.N. International Police Task Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina when the U.N. mission concludes its work at the end of 2002.