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The EU should take over as the main international player in Bosnia after the UN's office in the ex-Yugoslav country is closed by the end of this year, according to a new NGO report which also suggests Europe needs more than just enlargement promises to overcome Bosnia's ethnic divisions.

The EU on Monday (12 February) gave its clearest signal yet that it is ready to restart integration talks with Serbia before Belgrade hands over top war crimes fugitives such as Ratko Mladic.

With Serbia determined to reject the UN plan for Kosovo, the European Union has conceded it may postpone planned consultations on the plan until a new government is formed in Belgrade. An EU delegation to Belgrade, led by foreign policy chief Javier Solana, enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and separately Britain’s Europe minister Geoff Hoon, gave ground on February 7 after meeting Serbia’s president Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic. After urging them to form a democratic government and take part in planned consultations over the Kosovo’s final status, they indicated they might push back the timetable.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina | The pending decision on Kosovo’s status and Serbia’s recent election results are consuming what little attention policy-makers give the Balkans these days. But by the end of February, over a decade of international efforts to forge a lasting peace and the ultimate integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European mainstream will come down to one critical set of decisions. Late January saw the overdue and ill-camouflaged firing of Christian Schwarz-Schilling from the top job in the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and as EU special representative in Bosnia. In his face-saving announcement that he had decided not to seek an extension of his mandate, Schwarz-Schilling stated that OHR should not close as scheduled at the end of June. This judgment is almost certainly going to be confirmed in late February, when the Peace Implementation Council, the ad-hoc grouping of governments and international institutions that oversees the OHR, meets in Brussels.

The UN's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has appealed to the EU not to jeopardise her efforts to pursue a top Serbian war crimes suspect in the interests of securing support for a UN plan on the future status of Kosovo. Mrs Del Ponte met with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Wednesday (31 January) and urged him to continue Europe's pressure on Belgrade to deliver ex-general Ratko Mladic.

The Ahtisaari blueprint - which is still subject to change - proposes that Kosovo should remain under international supervision for an unspecified period of time but should gradually acquire the trappings of statehood, such as a flag, an anthem, a constitution and a NATO-trained army.

Four months after parliamentary elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the future of the country's constitutional reform package remains unclear. While some parties maintain that amendments agreed last April should be carried through, others are urging a totally fresh start. With politicians, analysts, legal experts and the international community divided, a question mark still hangs over the country's future set-up.

Centrist parties did worse than they expected in Serbia’s first general election and most diplomats and observers predicted difficulties ahead in forming a new government.But although the hard-line nationalist Serbian Radical Party, SRS, won most votes with 28.5 per cent of ballots on January 21, it will again be denied the chance to form a government as it lacks potential coalition partners.This means that the so-called democratic bloc will form the new administration. However, analysts say this would not be easy, firstly because of rivalries within the democratic bloc and secondly because no party among them has emerged as the clear leader.

Over the last six months, all progress on meeting the requirements of EU Stabilisation and Association Agreement has indeed stalled, and along with it all progress toward European integration. At the same time, the territorial integrity of the country again is open to question, as Bosnian Serbs threaten secession in the event of Kosovo's independence from Serbia. Schwarz-Schilling was wrong-footed in his dealings with the wily premier of Republika Srpska, RS, Milorad Dodik, who last year called for a referendum in the Bosnian Serb entity.

Divisions within the European Union on how to deal with Serbia have surfaced. While the Commission and some member states look eager to speed up Belgrade’s membership bid, others are angered by what they see as undue leniency.

The choice facing Serbia as it prepares for elections on January 21st is a stark one. With ultranationalists led by a Hague indictee likely to win the largest single bloc of votes, the oft-quarreling democratic parties are under pressure to overcome their differences.

PODGORICA -- Montenegro and a EU team have finished pre-membership negotiations, EU and Montenegrin officials said Friday. With "technical negotiations finished," the so-called Stabilization and Association Agreement could be signed within weeks, said Montenegro's minister for European integration, Gordana Đurović. The agreement, also known as SAA, is designed to prepare EU hopefuls for possible membership. The EU has encouraged newly independent Montenegro to work toward joining the bloc.

The EU's enlargement commissioner on Thursday allayed fears in Croatia that the bloc's internal reforms will impede the country's bid for membership by 2010. In his third visit of the year, Olli Rehn also stressed urgency in reform efforts, particularly in the judiciary and public administration, as well as the fight against corruption.

Cyprus has threatened to block an EU agreement on the fate of Turkey's membership talks if the union does not impose a new deadline on Ankara to normalise relations with Nicosia.