EON

Viana do Castelo, Portugal (EON) – EU officials and the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers vowed Saturday to remain united on how to deal with Kosovo, should last ditch diplomatic efforts aimed at finding a negotiated solution on the final status of the Serbian breakaway province fail.

“The European Union wants to maintain a united position today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. (Kosovo) is a European question that will affect the present and future of our continent. The will of the member states is to remain united and we will do it,” said Javier Solana, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, during an informal meeting in the northern Portuguese town of Viana do Castelo.

An EU, Russia and US troika charged with facilitating negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina is due to submit its final report on December 10.

Leaders of the predominantly ethnic-Albanian province are threatening to declare independence from Belgrade unless an agreed solution to the stand-off is reached by that date.

Serbia’s leaders strongly oppose splitting up their territory while a plan by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari for a supervised independence for Kosovo is ready to be vetoed by Russia, one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Several EU member states with ethnic minorities of their own are also uneasy about the prospects of Kosovo independence for fear that it might set a dangerous precedent.

Solana on Saturday ruled out any talk of “partitioning Kosovo” while a suggestion by Italy to try and persuade Belgrade to relax its position in return for a speeding up of EU accession talks was effectively turned down by Olli Rehn, with the commissioner in charge of EU enlargement insisting that Serbia should first demonstrate its full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

On the second and final day of the meeting in Portugal, foreign ministers were briefed about the latest developments in the Balkans by Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, the EU representative in the troika.

EU officials urged members states to back the efforts of the troika and Rehn stressed that by making the bloc speak with a “single voice” on Kosovo, Ambassador Ischinger represented tangible evidence of a common EU policy on the issue.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said that while he could not provide guarantees that the EU would remain united after December 10, “(European) unity is the only factor of stability in this complex issue.”

Ministers meeting in Portugal also agreed to resume direct financial aid to the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah but made little progress on settling a number of issues concerning a new reform treaty, some six weeks before the discussions on the draft version are due to be concluded in Lisbon.