PRETORIA - South Africa said on Wednesday a summit between Africa and Europe could go ahead even if British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other leaders decided to boycott it because of the attendance of Zimbabwe's president.

Brown has said neither he nor any senior member of his government would attend a summit of African and European leaders in Lisbon in December, the first in seven years, if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe took part.

Many African leaders said they would boycott the summit if Mugabe did not attend.

"We are quite confident that a critical number of European leaders and a critical number of African leaders will be at the summit," South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said after European Union officials met their South African counterparts in Pretoria.

"Summits depend on a number of persons being there not just one person. Of course, we would like him (Brown) to be there," she told a news conference after the talks.

The summit between the two blocs failed to take place in 2003 after Britain and other EU states refused to attend if Mugabe did. Critics accuse him of rigging elections, rights abuses and presiding over the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy.

Mugabe blames Western powers for the economic crisis and accuses them, and former colonial ruler Britain in particular, of plotting with the opposition to oust him.

Mugabe is subject to a European Union travel ban but that could be suspended to allow him to attend the December meeting.

Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has said all leaders are invited to the summit.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado said the summit was crucial to the development of relations between the EU and Africa, and the issue of the Mugabe invitation should not overshadow growing ties between them.

"We need to place this summit at the multilateral level between Africa and Europe, and deal with Zimbabwe and other problems on a bilateral level," he told the news conference.

Failure to do so would be a "huge strategic mistake," said Amado. Faced with mounting competition for influence in Africa from resource-hungry China, other EU leaders have indicated they would attend the gathering, even with Mugabe there.

In a sign of greater cooperation between Europe and Africa, the European Investment Bank signed an agreement on Wednesday to extend 980 million euros ($1.38 billion) in development aid to South Africa between 2007 and 2013, and an additional 900 million euros in loans, said European officials at the talks.