EU ministers to discuss Eulex problems in Luxembourg
Foreign ministers of the European Union are discussing Kosovo at their meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday, with a particular focus on the problems faced by the Eulex mission.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The mission has so far deployed some 250 out of 2,000 personnel - policemen, judges, etc - planned by mid-June.
However, the EU is facing increasing pressure as has problems of legality and legitimacy.
Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs are seeing the EU mission as illegal, while Moscow has said it would provide it with a UN stamp of approval only if a new UN Security Council was adopted stipulating Kosovo is part of Serbia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is participating in a Russia-EU troika meeting, held on the margins in Luxembourg.
Particular tension is linked with the future demarcation of competencies between Unmik and Eulex, since UN Secretary-General has refused so far to transfer any competencies to the European mission as hoped in Brussels.
Instead of "transfer of comptencies", a new phrase - "reconfiguration" - is now being used, but many open questions remain as to when, where and how the mission will fully function.
Eighteen EU members have recognized Kosovo so far, while nine have not done so (Portugal, Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus, Malta, the Czech Republic and Lithuania).
