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Kosovo predicts that it will be an EU member before 2020. But two years after its declaration of independence, its EU integration process is facing problems. Asked by Austrian daily Der Standard in an interview on Tuesday (16 February), whether Kosovo will get into the EU by the end of this decade, its foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, said: "I am optimistic that we will be in before that."

The EU is deeply engaged in Kosovo. Its rule-of-law mission, Eulex, is the bloc's largest in the world, with 2,600 people on the ground. Twenty EU countries take part in the International Steering Group, which helps oversee the Kosovo government. It has pumped in over €5 billion of aid since 1999. Despite the non-recognition issue, EU states have opened tentative talks on visa-free travel. A so-called "tracking" group meets around three times a year to pave the way for a pre-accession treaty, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). One of the most frequently cited problems on Kosovo's path to normality is the well-funded separatist ethnic Serb movement in the north of Kosovo. But despite the EU's investment in Pristina, tensions between Eulex and ethnic Albanians are also on the rise.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels yesterday, Moratinos appeared to take the side of his Serbian colleague Vuk Jeremic, who underlined divisions between EU member countries over Kosovo. Spain is among those EU countries not to have recognised the Balkan state (see 'Background'). 

Links European Union European Union Special Representative in Kosovo: EULEX, Kosovo: International Organisations UNMIK: International Civil Office, Kosovo:

On his first tour of the Western Balkan, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy condemned the recent violence in Kosovo and called for restraint and dialogue. An extraordinary session of the UN Security Council will be held on the matter today (6 July).

Serbia unhappy with pace of EU integration Later in the day, Van Rompuy met with Serbian President Boris Tadić in Belgrade. According to an official communiqué, the two leaders discussed the situation in "Kosovo and Metohia," as Belgrade officially calls its former province. The press also reported that Tadić will attend an extraordinary session of the UN Security Council in New York today, called at the initiative of Serbia. According to the statement, Tadić voiced his dissatisfaction with the slowdown in the European integration process, and insisted that speeding up Serbia's EU accession was crucial for the future of the Western Balkans. Last month, Serbia took another step towards EU integration when EU foreign ministers agreed to start implementing an accord with Serbia known as the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). The agreement had been blocked for several years, mainly as a result of the Netherlands' insistence that Belgrade must cooperate fully with the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Later today, Van Rompuy will be in Pristina to meet the president of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu. A visit to the headquarters of the EU's rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, is also on the agenda.

The European Commission (EC) last week gave a thumbs-up to Serbia's implementation of European standards on the road to EU membership and called on the Union to implement its Interim Trade Agreement with Serbia. Serbia signed the accord and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU in April 2008. Both agreements were suspended pending Serbia's full co-operation with The Hague tribunal. Currently, the only EU member blocking the Interim Trade Agreement is the Netherlands, which demands that fugitive Ratko Mladic be apprehended and extradited.

Serbia, however, still has some work to do. The country must take a more constructive stance on Kosovo, pass the Vojvodina Statute, combat corruption and crime, continue with judiciary reforms, enhance the rights of minorities, and help bring those that attack journalists, human rights activists and members of the gay and lesbian population to justice. Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, also noted that European officials reprimanded Serbia's excessive budget spending, adding that if the trend continues, "Serbia will be heavily indebted with no advantage of becoming an EU member." Tanja Miscevic, head of the Serbian EU Integration Office from 2005 to 2008, also expressed restraint in assessing the report.

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