Serbia-Kosovo row overshadows EU-Balkans summit

(LJUBLJANA) - A EU-Balkans summit aimed at speeding up the region's European integration in Slovenia this weekend suffered a blow as Serbian President Boris Tadic said he would not attend because of a row over Kosovo.

Tadic would not attend the summit near Ljubljana since Kosovo, which has split from Serbia in 2008, would be represented as an indenpendent state, his office said in a statement.

Belgrade insists that Kosovo, which Serbia still considers its southern province, should not be invited to regional meetings as an independent state.

"Unfortunately, the organisers have not been able to organise this meeting in accordance with this principle so this prevents the presence of the Serbian president at the meeting," Tadic's office said.

The summit, which may be attended by EU President Herman Van Rompuy, was conceived by Slovenia and Croatia whose independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 ushered in a decade of regional bloodshed.

It was planned as the first meeting of all the political leaders in the region in last two decades.

After reaching a deal last year to solve their 18-year border dispute that had blocked Croatia's EU accession talks, Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor and his Croatian counterpart Jadranka Kosor saw their agreement as a template for other Balkan conflicts, including between Serbia and Kosovo.

"We believe that is the model on which we all should continue building and solving eventual problems," Kosor said at a recent meeting with Pahor and Tadic.

But optimism over improved relations between EU member Slovenia and its neighbour Croatia, which hopes to join the bloc by 2012, was not echoed by some Balkan states.

Even Pahor has admitted the summit is "a mission almost impossible" given the difficulty of bringing to the table the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo.

Ahead of the summit, officials have tried to get Serbia and Kosovo to agree on a format that would allow them both to attend the conference.

Belgrade has said it would boycott the meeting if Pristina's leaders attended as state representatives, with Serb officials only prepared to meet them if they attend under the United Nations administration UNMIK flag.

But Pristina rejected such requests, with Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci -- who has meanwhile left for Slovenia -- saying that Kosovo "will be represented in the same equal way as all other countries of the region."

While almost all 27 EU nations have recognised Kosovo's independence, Serbia still considers the large ethnic-Albanian enclave to be a rogue province, under UN control.

Pahor himself has promised to do "whatever is necessary for the success of the conference" ahead of a last minute trip to Brussels to meet with Van Rompuy on Thursday.

But a diplomat in Brussels said after the talks that Van Rompuy might stay away due to "problems" between Slovenia, Serbia and Kosovo.

"For the time being, there are problems and if they aren't resolved before Saturday, I don't expect the president to take part in something which will end up in stalemate," the diplomat said.

Pahor met Serbia's Tadic to discuss the issue on Wednesday, and sought to drum up support from other Balkan states for the summit that would bring together the leaders of Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania for the first time since 1991.

"We have to deal with a large volume of problems that nobody has managed to solve so far," Pahor said.