A senior delegation from the European Union (EU) will be travelling to Zimbabwe this weekend, in an effort to start rebuilding ties with the country.

Swedish International Development Cooperation Minister, Gunilla Carlsson, and EU Aid Commissioner, Karel de Gucht, will travel to the country this weekend after an EU-South Africa summit on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday they will meet Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, as well as other ministers, officials and representatives of NGOs.

De Gucht said in a statement that the meetings would be "to discuss the way forward towards the normalisation of EU-Zimbabwe relations."

Apart from a resumption of national political dialogue the EU wants an end to politically motivated violence. It also demands that the rule of law be strengthened and media freedoms improved, as well as more transparency in the financial system and reforms at the central bank.

The visit is the first since targeted sanctions were placed against Mugabe and his cronies in 2002, and comes hot on the heels of calls by Southern African leaders for the sanctions to be lifted. The calls made by leaders at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Kinshasa this week have proved the region's continued support for Mugabe, which analysts say will strengthen his hand in the already fragile unity government.

There are now real concerns that the EU is considering lifting its targeted sanctions, as part of its efforts to strengthen EU-Zimbabwe relations. However, according to the Reuters news service, senior EU officials say there is no plan to lift the sanctions, and that the visit is 'preparatory' and 'to re-establish political dialogue'. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, said the EU was not considering lifting sanctions.

"It is not the restrictions that are creating problems in Zimbabwe, it is the mismanagement [and] not respecting of human rights," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.

The government meanwhile has remained critically deadlocked on key outstanding issues of the agreement that formed the basis for the unity government. The deadlock has been reached against a background of ongoing rights violations across the country that has seen the deaths of at least two MDC activists in the past couple of weeks. MDC supporters have also reported ongoing harassment by ZANU PF youth militia in various areas across the country, while the army too has tightened its brutal control of the Chiadzwa diamond fields.

Rights monitor, Human Rights Watch, has called for the targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies to remain in place, until rights violations end in Zimbabwe. Last month the group reported that the unity government had not done enough to ensure rights reforms, since its formation in February. The group had called on SADC leaders to pressure the government to end the violations, saying "SADC leaders should stand with the people of Zimbabwe by calling for urgent reforms to address the country's political and human rights crisis."

Human Rights Watch senior researcher, Tiseke Kasambala, on Thursday said the group is 'concerned and disappointed' by the calls for the targeted sanctions against Mugabe's regime to be lifted, saying the move is far too premature. She explained that "much more needs to be done for real rights reform in Zimbabwe," and argued that the lifting of the sanctions would only reward the people responsible for creating the crises still present in the country.

"Until the full terms of the Global Political Agreement are implemented then it is not a good idea to reward ZANU PF and Mugabe," Kasambala said. "Until there are real reforms, then there should be absolutely no talk of lifting the sanctions."

She continued that the ongoing support of Mugabe by SADC was of concern, but not surprising, calling such support "a huge mistake." She explained that SADC leaders "need to press Zimbabwe openly and publicly for human rights reforms, to prevent the country from backsliding into state-sponsored violence and chaos."