Belgium caught in travel ban row

By Tim Franks BBC Europe correspondent

France allowed Mr Mugabe himself to visit this year

A Zimbabwean minister is visiting Brussels today despite a European Union ban on travel visas for members of the Zimbabwean Government.

Samuel Mumbengegwi, the Minister for Trade, is expected to attend a meeting of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries.

The EU imposed the sanctions because of what it said were violations of humans rights and the democratic process in Zimbabwe.

The EU frequently professes its concern about the African nation - but the strict travel ban it has imposed on Zimbabwe's ruling class, is not, in practice, that strict.

Few options

A spokesman for the Belgian foreign ministry explained that there is little his country can do.

Belgium hosts the international organisation that is the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of nations.

If they want to invite a Zimbabwean minister to the meeting, he has to be allowed to come, the spokesman said.

But UK Conservative members of the European Parliament reject the Belgian argument.

They say the African, Caribbean and Pacific group is a creation of the European Union and it is within the power of the EU to decide whom it wants to invite to its meetings.

The British Government is not sending a minister to this meeting.

It is, though, sending a senior official from the Department for International Development.