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| Version 5 | Version 6 |
|---|---|
| EU offers Serbia deal on Kosovo | EU offers Serbia deal on Kosovo |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| European Union leaders have offered Serbia a fast-track route towards candidacy for EU membership. | European Union leaders have offered Serbia a fast-track route towards candidacy for EU membership. |
| The plan is seen as a way of keeping the Balkans stable, with Kosovo set to declare independence from Serbia, which has already rejected the "trade-off". | The plan is seen as a way of keeping the Balkans stable, with Kosovo set to declare independence from Serbia, which has already rejected the "trade-off". |
| EU leaders, meeting in Brussels, also agreed "in principle" to send an 1,800-strong security force to Kosovo to support the existing UN mission. | |
| But no decision on recognising Kosovo's path to independence was taken. | |
| At a one-day summit in Brussels, the leaders stated that the current situation in Kosovo was unsustainable. | |
| Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates: "We took a formal decision to send an ESDP [European Security and Defence Policy] mission to Kosovo." | |
| He described it as the clearest signal the EU can possibly send that it intended to take the lead role in the future status of the province. | |
| Conditions remain | |
| The BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels says Europe is sending a political message of encouragement to Serbia, ahead of a presidential election next month where the pro-Western incumbent will face an ultra-nationalist candidate. | |
| Mr Socrates said the EU was confident that Serbia's progress towards EU candidate status could be accelerated, but only after Belgrade hands over the war crime fugitives still at large. | |
| But the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic rejected any linkage. | |
| Serbia, he said, would work on speeding up European integration but would never accept anything in exchange for Kosovo. |