Slovenia, Bulgaria Urge Serbia to Pursue EU

Belgrade`s signing of the deal was delayed due to the EU`s support for the declaration of independence by Kosovo.

Slovenia and Bulgaria Wednesday urged Serbia's leaders to seek further integration with the European Union rather than reverting to past isolation because of Kosovo's independence move.
"Serbs have to decide now between looking towards the past... or looking towards the future and the European perspective," Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said here after meeting his Slovenian counterpart Janez Jansa.

Stanishev added: "I hope and expect the Serbian authorities and public opinion at this very delicate moment will not prepare their people for a way back into the past."
The European Union last month offered Serbia a deal on political dialogue, free trade, visa relaxation and educational cooperation as a first step towards closer ties between the western Balkan state and the 27-state bloc.

But Belgrade's signing of the deal was delayed due to the EU's support for the declaration of independence by Kosovo, a Serbian province with an ethnic Albanian majority that has been administrated by the UN since 1999.
Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic speaking Wednesday before the EU parliament said relations between Belgrade and Brussels were jeopardised by the decision of some EU member states to recognise Kosovo.

Most of the 27 EU nations have said they intend to recognise Kosovo.
Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia, which currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, said his government will "most probably" on Thursday send to parliament a proposal for recognizing Kosovo. He added relations between Serbia and the EU are currently in the hands of Belgrade since the EU deal offer was still on the table.

Jansa told a joint news conference that Serbia's leaders had to choose whether to sign the deal offered by the EU and proceed with measures and reforms that will take the country closer to the European Union.
Slovenia is the only former Yugoslav state that has so far joined the European Union and is the first newcomer to have assumed the bloc's six-month rotating presidency.