The European Union has again ruled out resuming its bilateral aid programme with Fiji until after the elections promised by the regime for next September.
Aid to mainly the sugar sector was suspended in 2007 after the military coup by the current regime leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
Fiji has been seeking renewed EU assistance although the Cotonou Agreement precludes that EU assistance be given to countries that have ceased to be democracies.
The European Commission's Directorate-General for Development Co-operation, Marcus Cornaro, has met Commodore Bainimarama in Fiji and says the terms for a full re-engagement still apply.
"It's certainly premature, before we can see how these elections are being run and having analysed the results, to actually move towards a resumption, to a full normalisation of development assistance, including the resumption of bilateral aid."
Marcus Cornaro says preparations are being made to resume full relations to encourage the return to democracy,
