BRUSSELS: The European Union will work with Ivory Coast's government to remove all sanctions that were imposed to pressure strongman Laurent Gbagbo to step down, a senior EU diplomat said Tuesday.
One day after Gbagbo was detained, the top diplomat said the EU would consult with President Alassane Ouattara's administration on the remaining economic sanctions slapped against Ivorian companies.
Following a request from Ouattara last week, the EU lifted sanctions on the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro as well as an oil company and the regulators of the country's vital cocoa and coffee industries.
"We will review the remaining sanctions in consultation with Ouattara's government and withdraw them as and when it is deemed appropriate," Nicholas Westcott, head of the EU diplomatic service's Africa office, said on Tuesday.
"But we will take action on that as swiftly as called for," he told the EU Parliament's foreign affairs committee.
Ivory Coast is the world's top cocoa producer. Its coffee and cocoa industries represent 40 percent of export revenues and one-fifth of the country's gross national product.
After Gbagbo refused to concede defeat in November elections, the 27-nation EU imposed travel bans and assets freezes on the incumbent leader and scores of his associates as well as sanctions on economic entities.
The other firms hit by sanctions included several banks as well as the national oil company Petroci, the APROCANCI association of rubber producers and SOGEPE electricity utility.
European foreign ministers are meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday, with the situation in Ivory Coast and the conflict in Libya high on their agenda.
Westcott said the ministers will adopt a statement saying they EU "strongly support" Ouattara's efforts to achieve national reconciliation and "urge him to appoint a formal government now that reflects that wish."
The EU will also pledge to help Ivory Coast overcome the humanitarian crisis "which continues to exist" and support the reconstruction of the economy, he said.
The bloc will increase humanitarian aid to Ivory Coast and "ensure its swift delivery to the places where it is most needed" in cooperation with the United Nations and other international relief organisations, the diplomat said.
The European Comission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection agency (ECHO) has already provided 30 million euros in aid.
Normal development assistance, which had largely been put on hold during the crisis, will resume "as swiftly as possible," he added.
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