Ahead of the December 8-9 summit in Lisbon, the European Union says it sees more trade within Africa and with Europe as the best way to end decades of poverty and political wrangling.

"What we need is an end to the paternalism, the neocolonialism, the never-ending moralising," EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel told a news conference on Thursday. "We need a real dialogue, now."

But disputes between Brussels and some African countries over a string of planned new trade and aid deals have led to accusations that the EU still resorts to old-fashioned bullying in its dealings with the continents.

"We all agree that we should be allied with Europe...but the method is outdated," Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade told television station France 24 on Thursday. "You can't put us in a strait-jacket, that won't work."

The EU says it needs to clinch new Economic Partnership Agreements with former European colonies in Africa, and other regions of the world, before a World Trade Organisation waiver on current preferential treatment expires on December 31.

Some African nations protest they will face too much competition and that they are being strong-armed into signing the deals after the EU refused to seek a new waiver at the WTO.

Diplomats also fear the aim of Lisbon summit, the first between the EU and Africa in seven years, in which they hope to forge a new partnership, will be overshadowed by controversy over the participation of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe.

HIGHER TARIFFS

So far only a handful of mostly small countries in eastern and southern Africa and in the Pacific have agreed deals.

Bigger economies such as South Africa and Nigeria have refused to sign. Wade said his country could not face the competition and would not sign.

"Europe needs to walk the walk on partnership, not just talk the talk," said Oliver Buston of Africa advocay group DATA.

"The European Commission is being very aggressive, bullying some ministers," said San Bilal of the European Centre for Development Policy Management.

For its part, Brussels says Africa has nothing to fear from the EPAs and accuses critics of working against Africa's interests.

Michel said the EU had done everything it could to take African interests into account and help boost trade, including by increasing aid to help Africa's transport infrastructure.

The EPAs would give the former European colonies immediate duty-free and quota-free access to EU markets, except for rice and sugar. Local tariffs on EU imports would be phased out in periods of up to 25 years.

Without the deals, the poorest of the African countries, including Senegal, will continue to benefit from almost tariff-free exports to the EU.

But more developed economies like banana exporter Ivory Coast or Namibia would face higher EU import tariffs once the WTO waiver expires.

The EU is Africa's largest commercial partner with trade totalling more than 200 billion euros last year. But China leapt into third place in 2006 with 43 billion euros and has stepped up investments, raising concerns in Europe about Beijing's growing influence in the continent.