EU criteria for Serbia include Kosovo, Van Rompuy says

Sep 9, 2011, 9:58 GMT

Belgrade - Serbia needs to meet the required criteria, including to nurture good relations with Kosovo, to be formally recognized as a European Union membership candidate, the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Friday in Belgrade.

'The question which the European Council must answer in December, on which the European Commission will give an opinion in October, is the question of meeting the Copenhagen criteria,' Van Rompuy told a conference on Serbia's EU aspirations.

'Kosovo is only one aspect of the story, though a complex and delicate one,' he told the 'Serbia-EU' conference.

President Boris Tadic, who leads the fragile ruling pro-EU coalition, earlier hoped not only that the Commission, the EU's executive, would recommend Serbia's promotion to a membership candidate and set a date for the start of accession talks.

But as tensions stemming from the secession of the mostly Albanian Kosovo from Serbia erupted into violence in July, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Serbia that it must come to terms with Kosovo and stop meddling in it if it wants to join the EU.

A dialogue with Kosovo on 'real-life issues' that Serbia agreed to begin with Kosovo under EU auspices in March faltered in July and were resumed in September, but tensions remain high as Serbs who dominate northern Kosovo continue to resist the authority of Pristina.

Van Rompuy urged Serbia and Kosovo to continue the talks and show the will to compromise. 'These recent events showed how important an honest and substantial dialogue is,' he said.

Addressing the conference, Tadic said that Serbia 'seeks no shortcuts' to EU membership, but also that it does not want conditions that are different from those laid out for other prospective members.

He reiterated that Serbia would continue implementing reforms required by the EU, but also that it will not only continue refusing to recognize Kosovo, but also that it will not stop supporting Kosovo Serbs and their institutions of parallel authority.

'It is completely unrealistic to expect of Belgrade to accept the cancelation of (Serb) institutions in the north of the province,' he said.

Kosovo split from Serbia in 2008 and was quickly recognized by the big western powers, 22 out of the 27 EU nations and all countries in the region apart from Greece and Romania, but Belgrade officials still speak of it as of Serbian soil and refer to it as a province.

Heading toward regular elections in the spring of 2012, Tadic's camp has come under increased pressure from the nationalists hostile to the West, who interpreted Merkel's demand for the resolution of Serbia's issues with Kosovo as an ultimatum to recognize it.

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