By Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck and Tim Cocks
BRUSSELS/ABIDJAN (Reuters) - European Union countries agreed on Monday to impose a travel ban on Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo for failing to step down after a presidential election the outside world says he lost.
Separately, rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara urged the United Nations to toughen its peacekeeping mandate to help quell a violent power struggle that has already claimed over 50 lives and prompted fears of a return to civil war.
The travel ban will affect Gbagbo's wife and 17 of his close allies.
"We expect the ban to be adopted by Wednesday and come into effect on Thursday, effective immediately," European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic told reporters in Brussels, adding that governments were also discussing a freeze on assets.
Washington has threatened similar punitive measures after the November 28 poll intended to heal scars in a country ripped apart by a 2002-2003 civil war but which has only accentuated the divide between the Gbagbo-held south and rebel-held north.
The EU travel ban list is expected to include top security, ruling party and regular army officials as well as figures in the entourage of Gbagbo and his powerful wife Simone.
"I don't think this will advance things. It just shows that those behind them haven't got much room for manoeuvre," Gbagbo aide Pascal Affi N'Guessan said of the sanctions.
Tensions in Ivory Coast have pushed cocoa futures to four-month highs in recent weeks on market fears of a disruption to supplies. So far, beans have been getting through to port but there have been delays in registering them for export.
IN HELL, "JUST KEEP GOING"
Ouattara's eight-point poll victory was overturned on grounds of alleged fraud by the Constitutional Council, a top legal body led by a staunch Gbagbo ally.
While Ouattara has been endorsed as president by the United Nations, African countries, Washington and the EU, Gbagbo remains in control of the army and lucrative revenues from oil and cocoa in the world's top grower.
Both the U.N. and France have defied Gbagbo's calls for them to quit the country, and U.N. Security Council powers were due later to review terms under which the 10,000-strong UNOCI force, whose mandate runs out at the end of the month, will stay.
"I am in no doubt that it will be renewed," Patrick Achi, a spokesman for a rival Ouattara presidency that has set up base at a UN-guarded hotel in central Abidjan, said of Security Council discussions on the mandate due later on Monday.
"The question is ... will they change it to an intervention mandate to support the president -- that's what we are asking for," he said, calling for a mandate to pursue offensive operations against troops committing abuses.
The U.N. force is currently mandated to protect U.N. personnel and sites and to protect civilians "under imminent threat of physical violence."
Local U.N. mission chief Y.J. Choi declined to comment on the mandate issue but accused Gbagbo's camp of a media campaign inciting violence against U.N. personnel and said "armed young men" had been sent to harass some staff at their homes.
"However, all these acts will not deter UNOCI from doing its job as we remember one of Winston Churchill's maxims: 'If you are going through hell, just keep going.'"
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay cited on Sunday evidence of "massive" violations in Ivory Coast, saying over 50 people had been killed in the previous three days and said hundreds had been abducted from their homes by armed men.
Outside the U.N. headquarters, Ouattara supporters who said they were attacked overnight begged for medical care.
"Masked men attacked us last night," said Salif Kone, 57, a taxi driver who escaped a raid on his Abidjan neighbourhood. "They fired tear gas and bullets. Many were wounded."
Gbagbo's government has denied using excessive force to put down protests last week and says some protesters were armed.
Around 5,000 Ivorians have already fled to neighbouring countries such as Liberia and Guinea, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has said it is making contingency plans for a possible greater exodus.
