Brussels, 07/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The EU "welcomes the election by the Kosovo Assembly of the President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, and the establishment of a government", declared the Spanish Presidency. This election, which had been delayed by difficulties in finding a majority within the Kosovo Assembly, marks, it says, "an important step forward in the implementation of the UN Security Council; Resolution 1244" . The EU "trusts that the Kosovo provisional institutions of self-government will take on in full the functions assigned to them by the constitutional framework", and "underlines the importance of the transition to the consolidation and further development of the provisional institutions of self-government that now begins. The provisional institutions and community leaders, with the assistance of UNMIK, the EU and the international community at large, must to their utmost to build up a democratic, multiethnic society based on the rule of law".