Brussels, 01/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has decided to send a mission of experts to Kosovo for the election of mayors and municipal councillors to be held on 15 November and 13 December. Financed by the pre-accession instrument, the mission is not strictly speaking an EU election observation mission. Only three experts will be deployed from 23 October to 23 November and from 3 December to 21 December. They will make no public comments on the way elections are held, but will report on their observations to the Swedish EU Presidency, the EU Special Representative in Kosovo, relevant European Parliament and European Commission services, and the member states' ambassadors to that country. This is the first time such a mission has been sent by the European Commission to a geographical area where it is generally the OSCE and the Council of Europe that deploy observers. However, these two institutions will not be sending a mission this time, due especially to the lack of consensus between their members over the status of Kosovo. The European Parliament is expected, on the other hand, to send a delegation of about ten parliamentarians, as is usually the case for EU observation missions of the “traditional” kind. (A.B./transl.jl)