[3] There was controversy about the attendance of Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, as he is subject to an EU travel ban.

The European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, defended inviting Mugabe to attend, saying that "If international leaders decided not to go to those conferences involving countries which do not have reasonable human rights records, I'm afraid we would not be attending many conferences at all.

"[4] Because of Mugabe's attendance, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK stayed away, and United Kingdom was represented by Baroness Amos.

The eight areas for strategic partnerships are: The existing preferential trade agreements between the EU and the ACP countries would not be compatible with WTO rules, except for a waiver which terminated at the end of 2007, and it had been hoped to replace these arrangements by WTO-compatible Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), but these were rejected by the African delegations.

[6] Differences on human rights centered on Zimbabwe and its president, Robert Mugabe, as well as the Darfur conflict.