What's in a name? Brdo summit to take place

16/03/2010

With or without Serbia, the planned EU-Balkans summit reportedly will be held in the Slovenian town of Brdo on Saturday.

(WAZ.EUobserver.com - 16/03/10; B92, Blic - 15/03/10; AFP, Beta, B92, Radio Srbija, Sofia News Agency - 14/03/10; Examiner.com - 10/03/10; AFP - 09/03/10; EurActiv, AFP - 08/03/10)

"Serbia is not going to participate in any international forum which does not uphold the principles of the UN," President Boris Tadic said. [Getty Images]

The EU-Balkans summit hosted by the Slovenian town of Brdo will take place as planned, even if some of the invited guests fail to show up, the Brussels-based online news service Euobserver reported on Tuesday (March 16th).

The news came amid speculation that Saturday's meeting -- the first to bring together the leaders of all former Yugoslav republics, plus Albania, in the last 18 years -- might be cancelled over Serbia's threat to boycott the event if Kosovo should attend as an independent state.

Serbian President Boris Tadic says his country will participate in any regional forum that respects the principles of the UN, including Security Council Resolution 1244.

"A regional forum cannot represent an implicit recognition of Kosovo's independence," he told reporters following talks with Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom in Novi Sad on Sunday. "Serbia will neither implicitly nor explicitly recognise Kosovo's independence, either by its decisions or with its participation in regional forums and meetings."

He insisted that Kosovo, which is recognised by 65 countries in the world, including the majority of EU member states and Balkan nations -- except Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania -- should participate in international forums under UNMIK's flag.

But Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said last week that he would attend the Brdo meeting only as the representative of an independent state.

The conference, organised under the motto "Together for the European Union: Contributions of the Western Balkans to a European Future", is being co-sponsored by Slovenia and Croatia. EU Council President Herman van Rompuy will attend, as will Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency. Spain is one of the five members of the 27-nation bloc that have not recognised Kosovo.

The goal of the meeting is to promote the region's EU integration prospects and to "look for solutions" to some open issues, Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor said last week. The organisers, Pahor added, want the summit to end with a joint declaration on "the European perspective of the Western Balkans".

Serbia, which submitted its official EU membership application in December, has been warned by the bloc's heavyweights to refrain from strong rhetoric about Kosovo, according to the Euobserver report.

"It will cause lots of problems for the EU if Serbia is given the opportunity to decide under which conditions Kosovo can take part in international or regional forums," the Euobserver quoted a senior EU diplomat as saying. "We have tolerated this in the past but now it is time to turn the page."

A week before the Brdo meeting, Cedomir Jovanovic, the leader of Serbia's pro-European Liberal Democratic Party, urged Tadic to attend the summit, as well as to meet with Kosovo's leaders as a gesture of good will.

"Instead of fighting for territory, we must fight for life," Belgrade-based B92 quoted Jovanovic as saying.