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Serbia vowed Wednesday to press on and implement a European Union trade deal despite anger at a Dutch veto that came even though Belgrade arrested top war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.Bozidar Djelic, Serbia's deputy prime minister for EU integration, said in an interview with a local newspaper that he was "infuriated" by the Netherlands' refusal to unfreeze the EU trade and aid pact.

EU foreign ministers on Monday failed to convince their Dutch counterpart, Maxime Verhagen, to drop his country's objections to unfreezing the accord despite Belgrade's improved track record on war crimes.UN chief war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz had told the EU ministers there was "very clear progress" in Serbia's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The Balkans country is engulfed in a bitter dispute over today’s election, which will determine whether it moves a step closer to EU membership, writes Tom Lynch.

ronically, perhaps the only consensus between Serbia’s political parties is that they all agree Kosovo should remain part of Serbia.Serbia is classified as a Potential Candidate Country by the EU, meaning that the EU recognises that Serbia will eventually join, once it is ready.On April 29, 2008, the EU signed the Stability and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia. The SAA is the first step on the road to EU membership, and also guarantees certain benefits - in the form of EU funding and trade liberalisation.In an added incentive, 16EUmember states have also offered visa-free travel for Serbian people.The agreement was pushed through, despite some members’ opposition, to counter the growing popularity of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party and New Serbia Party, and the overarching fear that Serbia might turn its back on the EU.The SAA will not come into force until Serbia arrests and hands over Ratko Mladiæ , former chief of staff of the Bosnian Serb army - who is wanted over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, so it does not represent much of a real breakthrough. This has long been a sticking point in the EU-Serbia negotiations.

The EU on Monday (26 May) admitted there may be some delays in the deployment of its mission to Kosovo, but insisted they would not be "dramatic."

But question marks over the divisions of power between the UN, the EU and the local authorities, as well as over the mission's legal basis, seem likely to delay the process. "I believe EULEX could be operative on the field after the summer – September and October," Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said after a meeting of the EU's foreign ministers in Brussels, according to Reuters.

Bosnia to sign pre-accession deal in June On Monday, the bloc's foreign ministers also announced that a pre-accession deal with Bosnia and Herzegovina would be signed on 16 June, after a two-month delay mainly due to translation issues.

The decision was taken on Tuesday morning after Belgium and the Netherlands agreed to sign the SAA.

They yielded to the pressure of other EU states – who have been prepared to sign the agreement for weeks - on condition that Serbia will not get any concrete benefits from the agreement until Belgrade is judged as fully cooperating with the ICTY. Normally, ratification of such documents is launched immediately after they are signed.

Kosovo Serbs have inaugurated their own parliament with a declaration that Kosovo is a part of Serbia, defying criticism from the UN and ethnic Albanian leaders that the assembly is illegal.

The delegates present at the session further said that the perceived "urgent need to protect their lives, rights, freedoms, dignity, identity, integrity, culture and property, and rejecting illegal secessionist acts," was the reason why the assembly was created.The assembly, the declaration adds, is a representative body for the citizens of Serbia in this province, that will work in publicly and aim to steer and harmonize the work of its member-municipalities. The assembly has the right to send draft laws to the Serbian parliament, on those issues that are relevant to the residents of Kosovo. However the assembly has no executive authority but reflects a deepening ethnic partition of Kosovo since its Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February, backed by the West but opposed by Belgrade and its ally Russia.

The European Union has given the political green-light to a 1,800-strong police and civilian mission to be deployed in Serbia's breakaway region of Kosovo, although differences remain over the possible recognition of Kosovo's independence.

However, it remains unclear when precisely the EU's mission, consisting of 1,800 policemen, prosecutors and judges, can be deployed on the ground. While Luxembourg's Jean Asselborn said the mission would be deployed "just after Christmas [2007]", Bulgarian foreign minister Ivailo Kalfin indicated a less ambitious time-frame - "before the end of the summer [2008]". According to Slovakia's foreign minister Jan Kubis, the specifics of the mission should be concluded in January next year, after a round of consultations with the UN body.

Divisions on Serbia The summit also highlighted the persistent divisions among member states concerning whether to link the further integration of Serbia with the arrest of remaining war crimes suspects, notably general Ratko Mladic.

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 Prime Minister of Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, met with Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday (May 15) at the Elysee Palace, after visiting Brussels two days earlier. The key goal is visa abolition for this small landlocked country of 2 million people. Macedonia is proud of its achievements in becoming a leader in the region considering the matter. "We have met all the conditions in order the European Commission to propose visa liberalisation, Gruevski tells Le Monde. The decision should be reached in late autumn. Hopefully, as of Jan. 1 2010, our citizens will freely travel the Schengen zone." According to officials in Skopje, over 450.000 biometric passports have been already issued.

At NATO Summit in Bucharest last April, Greece vetoed Macedonia’s accession to the Alliance. The country was admitted in the UN in 1993 under the interim reference – The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In November of 2008, Skopje filed a motion before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. "Greece does not only want for us to change our name, but also the passports, Constitution, naming of our language, our identity," Mr Gruevski says. In order to lift the Greek obstacle, the Premier believes that Brussels should influence on its member country. “Macedonia is not sufficiently powerful to deal with this alone, he says. That is why we are in Paris. We need support, but ask for nothing we haven’t deserv

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