All eyes on Kosovo at Brussels EU summit

After having arrived in Brussels following yesterday’s signing ceremony for the new EU treaty in Lisbon, European leaders are seeking to reach a common position on the future status of Kosovo.

However, the European Council is expected to stop short of backing a unilateral declaration of independence by the province, with leaders instead preferring to wait until after the presidential elections in Serbia on 20 January, which may require a second round of voting on 3 February. 

Establishing a united front in the EU is considered imperative as the prospect of a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo’s leaders draws ever nearer. 

The threat of a split among EU nations explains the decision of the heads of state and government to focus on the issue when they sit down with their foreign ministers at today’s summit (14 December). 

“The most important thing is to stand together and probably also to wait for the Serb presidential elections”, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told Reuters. 

Meanwhile, foreign ministers from the ‘quartet’ of the EU’s biggest countries – the UK, Germany, France and Italy – have demanded that the EU “send a clear message on Kosovo” in an open letter to leaders at the summit, according to reports in the Guardian. 

The ministers are calling for an EU mission to be dispatched to the province, under the mandate of the Ahtisaari plan, to help implement that roadmap to independence. The deployment is expected to comprise policemen, judges and prosecutors, and will assist the local administration in taking over control of the province from the UN. 

EU member states have long been struggling to reach common ground on the future of Kosovo. Although most member states, most notably the ‘quartet’, are in favour of its independence, others, including Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Slovakia, are reluctant as they fear that it would set a legal precedent with knock-on effects for minorities in their own countries. 

The debate over Kosovo’s final status is set to continue as the UN Security Council addresses the issue at its meeting on 19 December. 

However, there is not much optimism that agreement will be reached there either. “We need to be realistic about the slim prospects of securing the necessary level of consensus in the Security Council”, the Guardian quoted the foreign ministers of the EU quartet as saying. 

Read more with Euractiv

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