Slovenian PM Wants Faster EU Accession for Serbia

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa has written to European Union leaders to urge that Serbia be given fast-track EU candidate status.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa has written to European Union leaders to urge that Serbia be given fast-track EU candidate status, the Slovenian daily Delo reported on Monday.

According to the newspaper, Jansa sent a letter to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and heads of EU member states saying: "Serbia could get candidate status in the following months or at the latest in the first half of 2008, providing it fulfils the necessary conditions".

The EU has made it clear to Serbia that it cannot hope to advance towards membership until it hands over, or otherwise accounts for, top war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic, the commander of Bosnian Serb forces wanted on charges of genocide.

Slovenia has said it will focus on the Balkans when it holds the rotating presidency of the EU in the first half of next year. Jansa's office confirmed to Reuters that a letter was sent about a week ago but refused to disclose its contents.

Delo, quoting sources in Brussels, said Jansa's letter noted that the prospect of Serbia's integration into the EU "would be the best path away from past traumas to a future of bigger economic and social progress".

Some Western diplomats say Serbia could revert to the nationalism of the 1990s if its breakaway province of Kosovo becomes independent this year. Others believe the risk is exaggerated.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, impatient after eight years under U.N. stewardship and months of fruitless talks with Belgrade, wants to declare independence by year-end.

Jansa wrote that "the process of giving Serbia candidate status should not be conditioned by the process of determining the status of Kosovo".