Serbs to cut ties with EU after its Kosovo support

Published on Tuesday 4 March 2008 21:01

SERBIA'S parliament is likely to adopt a resolution within days calling for the country to reject all formal ties with the European Union until the bloc withdraws its support for Kosovo's independence.

A draft motion, submitted yesterday by the nationalist Radical Party, is backed by allies of Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister, and by the late Slobodan Milosevic's Socialists. Together, they hold 144 of the parliament's 250 seats.

The resolution condemns the EU's deployment of an "illegal" supervisory mission to Kosovo, which went in after the former Serbian province seceded last month, and calls on the EU to withdraw it.

It also asks all EU countries that have recognised Kosovo as independent – Britain, France and Germany among others – to annul their decisions.

Belgrade lost control of the province, which has an Albanian majority, in 1999, when Nato intervened to expel Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing while fighting a two-year rebel insurgency.