Serbia’s road toward EU leads through Hague

Serbia’s road toward EU leads through Hague

The EU froze negotiations on closer economic and political ties - the first step towards EU membership - with Serbia in May 2006, demanding Belgrade show "full cooperation" with the UN court for war crimes in The Hague.

"We have to give Serbia a European perspective," French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters after a meeting with his counterparts.

However, Serbia had to fulfil demands for full cooperation with The Hague, Douste-Blazy added.

He also said that ministers were backing a UN plan which recommends that Kosovo should govern itself democratically and be able to make international agreements.

UN envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, who briefed the foreign ministers on how he intends to push his plan forward, voiced confidence that Russia would give up its opposition to the proposal.

Russia's final stance would only be known until after final talks at UN level, the former Finnish president said in an interview with Finnish broadcaster YLE in Brussels.

Moscow had told him several times that Russia was not more pro-Serbian than Serbia herself, YLE quoted Ahtisaari as saying.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said earlier Monday that the bloc would work to convince Russia of the UN plan, which the Kremlin sees as a dangerous precedent for other independence-minded regions across the post-Soviet region.

Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik told reporters that the EU wanted "to encourage, guide and support Serbia in making progress on its European way."

"From a political point of view, we are acting without a screenplay," Plassnik added.

Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said earlier Monday the EU had to show "that when a pro-European government in Serbia is established, we certainly also have to restart (talks on the) stabilization and association agreement."

"If this government engages in cooperating with ICTY, then ... we have achieved what we wanted," Asselborn said, adding: "This is a political process, not an arithmetic one."

EU governments have been split over whether talks on the agreement should resume before Serbia hands over former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić for trial on genocide charges to the court.

Several EU states - including Spain, Hungary and Slovenia - have said the EU must boost pro-European forces in Serbia and give it an incentive to cooperate over Kosovo.

Those seeking a softer line also insist that a final deal on closer economic and political ties with Serbia should only be sealed once Mladić is sent to The Hague.

EU foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana said earlier Monday that the bloc must "send a positive signal at the moment when a new (Serbian) government is formed."

EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn has indicated that a clear commitment from a new Serbian government to cooperate fully with the court could be enough to allow a resumption of talks.

But chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has warned the EU against restarting talks with Serbia, criticizing Belgrade's failure to cooperate with the tribunal in the hunt for Mladić.

The final talks before the plan envisaging Kosovo's gradual independence reaches the UN were delayed to February 21 at the request of Serbia, which has rejected the proposal as "unacceptable."

The Albanian authorities in Kosovo's capital of Priština have accepted the proposal, though some radicals say it does not go far enough in explicitly stating that the province should be an independent nation.

EU ministers were also expected to push ahead with preparations for an international presence to take control of a UN mission in Kosovo, which has administered the province since 1999.