Barroso urges goodwill on Kosovo visit
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called for
goodwill on the Kosovo independence question while visiting Pristina on Friday
(17 February), but a leading think-tank believes the EU should do more to push a
resolution forward.
"The time has come for a generous compromise. All
sides have to make a compromise," he said after meeting new Kosovo president
Fatmir Sejdiu on the final leg of a major Western Balkans tour, Balkans agency
DTT-NET.COM reports.
Mr Barroso added that the EU "is committed to find
a long term solution for a stable, democratic and multiethnic Kosovo, where all
the communities can live together in peace."
His statement comes two days
before UN envoy Martti Ahtissari kicks off Kosovo status talks between Pristina
and Belgrade in Vienna on Monday.
Earlier this week, the Serbian
president showed Belgrade's reluctance to entertain Kosovan Albanians'
pro-independence agenda by suggesting to the UN security council that a decision
on the final status of the UN-administered territory should be put off for 20
years.
US and western European diplomats gave the proposal short shrift
however.
Serbia is also facing Montenegro's departure from the
Serbia-Montenegro alliance, following a referendum in April or May, with the EU
recently saying it would endorse a pro-independence vote if 55 percent or more
people call for secession.
ICG urges firm
approach
Influential Brussels-based think-tank, the International
Crisis Group (ICG), said in a report out Friday that Kosovan Albanians and
Serbia will not be able to reach agreement on the territory's status on their
own, however.
"To create a stable Kosovo, the international community
must dare to impose independence rather than attempt finessing Pristina and
Belgrade's differences with an ambiguous and unstable settlement," the study
states.
"It is extremely unlikely that any Serbian government will
voluntarily acquiesce to the kind of independence, conditional though it is
likely to be, which is necessary for a secure, long-term solution."
The
report said it might fall to UN envoy Ahtissari to push through an "independence
package."
The ICG also urged Kosovo's Albanian majority to negotiate
deals for Serbian and other ethnic minority group rights in the event of
independence.
The think-tank, which has the ear of senior politicians in
Brussels, warned the international community it would "have to remain in
Serb-dominated northern Kosovo to avoid a violent breakdown after
independence."
Kosovo is officially part of Serbia-Montenegro, but has
been under UN rule since mid-June 1999, when NATO drove out Slobodan Milosevic's
Serbian military and police forces following a crackdown on the ethnic Albanians
in the region.
