Brussels, 05/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria and the Netherlands were still hesitating during the morning of Monday 5 December over whether to grant Serbia candidate status to the EU, with the General Affairs Council due to give its stance on the matter later that day.
Upon arriving at the Council, Werner Hoyer, the German minister for European affairs, underlined that he needed to see the details of the agreement reached on Friday 2 December between Belgrade and Pristina on the management of border crossing points - a matter of vital importance for Serbia's European future - before deciding on the country's candidature. He explained: “We need to sort out what has been agreed between Kosovo and Serbia these last few days. There is not sufficient clarity yet - we hope we'll get that today”. According to one European diplomat, cited by AFP, London, Vienna and The Hague would also like more evidence that Serbia's relations with Kosovo have been normalised. On the other hand, France, Finland and Spain are in favour of the country's candidate status. Madrid's stance is quite clear as it supports Serbia's candidature, said Spanish Secretary of State Diego Lopez Garrido addressing the Council. According to the agreement of 2 December, Pristina and Belgrade will “gradually set up the joint, integrated, single and secure posts at all their common crossing points” and this will be “implemented as soon as practically possible”, a European Union press release points out. The EU-led EULEX mission will supervise the agreement, in line with its mandate. “EULEX is already present at all gates in accordance with its mandate, and that will continue under the new arrangements, except that the gates, instead of being the gates on one side of the line, will be a sort of double gate including people from both sides of the line”, Robert Cooper, EU Facilitator for the agreement, told the Euronews channel. On Monday 5 December, the Serb president, Boris Tadic, called on the Serbs of Kosovo to accept the agreement.
During their meeting in Brussels on 1 and 2 December, the parties also held detailed discussion on the question of “inclusive and effective” regional cooperation on which good progress has been made, although an agreement has not yet been signed. They also discussed telecommunications and energy. (CG, with JK/transl.jl)