Serb EU snub is home politics: incoming EU presidency

By Manja Ulcar

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Serbia's threat to turn its back on EU membership over Kosovo probably has more to do with electioneering than political reality, incoming EU president Slovenia said on Thursday.

"Nobody is being forced to become a member," Slovene Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said, adding that Serbs should ask themselves: "How can a country surrounded by European Union member states survive if it is not a member itself?"

Serbia's parliament said on Wednesday it could turn its back on the EU and NATO, in a vote aimed at raising the stakes in its battle to stop the West from recognizing an expected declaration of independence by the majority Albanian province of Kosovo.

Parliament overwhelmingly backed a motion saying Serbia would not sign any treaty that did not acknowledge sovereignty over Kosovo -- including the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) that would put it on track to join the EU.

It was backed by President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, leaders of the two main parties in Serbia's centre-right ruling coalition, and supported by ultranationalist Radicals and Socialists on the opposition benches.

In Brussels, an EU spokesman played down the threat.

"Our position is unchanged, that Serbia has European prospects just like all the other Western Balkan states, and that this issue should not be linked to Kosovo," he said.

NATO said that, while the alliance had some low-level agreements with Serbia, there were no preparations for it to join nor had Serbia expressed interest in becoming a member.

"However, NATO believes the recipe for lasting stability in the Balkans is Euro-Atlantic integration, including Serbia. We certainly hope that process will continue," a spokesman said.

NATO foreign ministers discussed in Brussels this month the growing anti-NATO rhetoric coming from Belgrade.

Rupel told Slovenia's STA news agency the resolution should be viewed in the context of the coming presidential election in Serbia, a tight race between pro-Western Tadic and ultranationalist Tomislav Nikolic.

The motion was intended as a display of Serbian unity in the face of Western backing for Kosovo's independence. It was a gesture that no major party -- and no presidential frontrunner -- dared to oppose, and it was adopted by 220 votes to 14.

"Most actions in Belgrade are intended for pre-election use," said Rupel, whose country -- the first republic to quit the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federation in back in 1991 -- takes over the EU presidency on Jan 1.

EU and U.S. officials have urged Kosovo's leaders to coordinate any independence move with the West, and expect the declaration to come around April.

Some diplomats believe the EU will offer Belgrade the chance before that to sign the SAA, the first step to EU entry.