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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 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.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski attacked Greece for demonstrating "power" and "arrogance" over the infamous 'name dispute' following a disappointing EU summit for Skopje last week.

Background: In April, Athens vetoed Skopje's invitation to join NATO, arguing the name 'Macedonia' could lead Skopje to make territorial claims over Greece's own northern province of the same name.  A nationalist backlash followed in the small country of 2.5 million, which US former assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrook famously called "a hole in the middle of nothing".  Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski decided to ride on this wave and called for early elections. Macedonian legislators have ignored warnings from leading MEPs that early elections would threaten the country's EU accession (EurActiv 14/04/08). Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn warned in the meantime that the unresolved 'name dispute' with Greece could negatively affect Macedonia's EU agenda. 

The EU summit conclusions, adopted by European heads of state and government on 20 June, did not specifically mention that Macedonia would begin EU accession talks in 2008, to the disappointment of the small Balkan republic. 

On 8 November 2006 the Commission approved the Strategy Paper and the candidate countries' (Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey) and potential candidate countries' (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244) progress reports on their road towards the EU.

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

This website has been developed to offer visitors the opportunity to explore the diverse culture of Southeast Europe.The website provides information about culture and sports of the Western Balkans (Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, as well as Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244/99) and Turkey.