Belgian FM: We'll block EU shift on Serbia

Belgian FM: We'll block EU shift on Serbia

Diplomats are reported as saying that a number of EU states believed “a softer line would serve to encourage pro-European forces after last month's inconclusive elections, and help Serbia stomach an expected loss of sovereignty over Kosovo”, although full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal has been cited as the reason behind the EU’s decision to suspend Stabilization and Association talks with Serbia.  

Belgium and the Netherlands are now seen holding most strictly to the line that the EU should only restart talks once the Hague chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has said Belgrade is fully cooperating.

"In the past, we have respected her authority and now all of a sudden we should be put in a position where we say, 'we don't respect your authority anymore'," Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said in an interview to Reuters late on Tuesday.

"If you start doing that, it means international law is void. We can really not accept that," he said.

Any decision to restart SAA talks with Belgrade would have to be unanimously backed by the EU's 27 member states.

Spain, Italy and a number of eastern European states closer to Serbia are among those most overtly pushing for a softening of EU criteria for restarting talks, and diplomats say their arguments have begun to gain ground more widely, the agency reports.

Asked if Belgium and the Netherlands could hold their line in the face of pressure to budge, De Gucht said he had been assured by Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen on Monday that the Netherlands was determined not to shift.

"He confirmed they will also stick to this position and that they will certainly not change that position."

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels two weeks ago wrangled for hours about the wording of a statement on Serbia before agreeing that SAA talks could resume with Belgrade "provided it shows clear commitment and takes concrete and effective action for full cooperation with ICTY".

De Gucht rejected some interpretations that the statement left open the door for EU states themselves to decide on whether any new Serb government was deemed sufficiently cooperative.

"That is what some tried to do but we have, I think, effectively blocked that and I cannot agree to it...That (full cooperation) has to be asserted by Del Ponte," he said.