EU ministers will likely give the green light to opening accession negotiations with Serbia, if a number of conditions are respected, such as improving relations with  Kosovo.

EU ministers are expected to approve a text on Serbia that will be integrated in the 13-14 December summit conclusions, according to which the EU would “looks forward to open negotiations” with the country, on the basis of the conditions which according to diplomats “are not new” for Belgrade.

Serbia strives to open accession negotiations and could only be partially satisfied by such text, but diplomats insisted they wanted to convey the message that the momentum of relations is kept.

The conditions, they said, were the usual and included the normalisation of relations between the Serb-populated Northern Kosovo and the rest of Kosovo, as well as the so-called “integrated management” of border crossings in Kosovo, to be managed jointly by Serbian and Kosovar border guards.

“We consider that the conditions have been set, now they need to be fulfilled. It is not about adding new conditions or removing any of them. We need to work on the basis of what has been agreed,” a high-ranking diplomat said.

He added that the implementation of the conditions would also allow the EU to advance on Kosovo’s EU integration process, as a positive bilateral relation would enable to launch an agreement of stabilisation and association, a stage already fulfilled by all other EU hopefuls. EurActiv.com