(BRUSSELS) - Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's party was suspended from an EU centre-right bloc on Thursday due to its "very hard" stance on Kosovo's independence declaration, a deputy said.

"The European People's Party (EPP) has taken the decision to suspend Mr Kostunica's party to give him a warning and so that he can try to take more European positions," said French Euro MP Alain Lamassoure, after the group met ahead of a European Union summit in Brussels.

The suspension means Kostunica and the other members of his Democratic Party of Serbia will not be able to attend future meetings of the European conservative group.

Lamassoure did not say how long the suspension may be in place.

"We will see what happens after the elections. We will see what his electoral programme is," he added

Serbian President Boris Tadic dissolved parliament Thursday and called early elections for May 11, after the ruling coalition collapsed in a rift over ties with the EU and Kosovo's independence.

Kostunica announced Saturday that his party had failed to solve the dispute with its pro-European coalition partners from Tadic's Democratic Party (DS).

The government's collapse came less than a month after ethnic Albanian majority Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Serbia, which considers the territory the cradle of its history and culture.

Angered by most EU countries' decision to recognise Kosovo's independence, Kostunica, backed by opposition the ultra-nationalist Radical Party (SRS), had vowed to stop Serbia's EU integration unless the bloc acknowledged Kosovo as a part of Serbia.

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