Brussells Prepares "Joint Action" To Send "Supervised Independence" Mission To Kosovo

BRUSSELS -- Brussels is preparing a document entitled “Joint Action” as a legal basis for sending an EU mission to Kosovo.

It does not for the moment look as if the decision to send a mission to the province will be adopted by the end of the month at the meeting of EU foreign ministers, saz European officials in Brussels.

They claim that the mission is being prepared “very carefully” both operatively, and from the point of view of a decision within the EU’s competent bodies.

The same sources add that it is hard to understand Belgrade’s resistance to the EU mission being sent, and believe that Serbia’s views are now linked more to the question of status. That indeed is why the question of a mission is being linked to the signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement between Serbia and the EU, primarily because of the ongoing presidential election campaign there.

The sources in Brussels feel that Resolution 1244 is grounds enough to send the mission “as NATO has established, as there is no doubt that the resolution allows the OSCE and other international organizations to be deployed in Kosovo.”

Sources close to EU High Representative Javier Solana have said that the Ahtisaari Plan has not been adopted and is not officially linked to the EU mission. Others, however, claim that “it is true that the Ahtisaari Plan points to the need for an EU mission to Kosovo.”

Such a mission would not have to be deployed in the “state”, but would rather be part of the overall solution that goes hand in hand with proposals of “supervised independence”, claim the sources in Brussels, who add that “it is in the obvious and highest interests of minorities and all communities in Kosovo for a EU mission to come and monitor the application of law, and the activities of the judiciary and police."