Analysis: Serbia at the crossroads

BERLIN, March 12 (UPI) -- Serbs, in the upcoming snap elections, will have to choose between closer ties with Europe or moving toward Russia, and thus further isolation.

On Monday the Serbian government coalition was formally dissolved after Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica announced its collapse on Saturday. The country now faces elections in May, with EU officials hoping that the vote will result in a victory for the pro-European forces and reconciliation with the West after the dispute over the recognition of the former Serbian province of Kosovo's independence.

"Serbs now have the possibility to make a decision for their future," Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy official, said Monday.

While Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel of Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said he hoped that the "pro-European powers will win," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the vote "must not result in a nationalist constriction in Serbian politics."

Kostunica had pulled the plug on the coalition after its members had failed to agree on the country's possible future in the EU. Democratic forces had vetoed a resolution that intended to block Serbian EU membership as long as most members of the 27-nation bloc backed Kosovo's independence.

"The government did not have a united and common policy any more, and this kept it from performing its basic constitutional function, to define and lead Serbia's politics," a government statement said Monday.

The vote, likely to be held on May 11, will pin pro-EU Democrats against the Nationalists, currently the biggest group in Parliament. European observers fear that Kostunica's conservatives could side with the nationals, while all of Brussels' hopes lie with President Boris Tadic, who has spoken out against Kosovar independence but also in favor of closer ties with the EU.

"If we join the EU, then we can make sure that this outlaw state never becomes an EU member," Deutsche Welle quoted Tadic as saying on Serbian television.

The EU, which is about to deploy a multinational police and justice mission to Kosovo, has been scrambling to manage the tightrope walk of lobbying for international support for the former Serbian province and at the same time trying to appease Belgrade.

Brussels fears that Serbia -- which recently signed a major energy deal with Russia undermining an EU energy project and has been backed by the Kremlin on Kosovo -- moves further east, thus increasing the prospect of further instability in the Balkans.

"There is a shared view right across the 27 EU countries that we have a responsibility to ensure that the Serbian people know that we remain committed to ensuring that their country has a strong place in the EU of the future," British Foreign Minister David Miliband said Monday.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations with the help of NATO peacekeeping troops since 1999, when NATO bombing ended a bloody war between Serbian troops and Albanian rebels.

Earlier this year, after lengthy negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina had failed despite substantial international monitoring and mediation, Kosovo announced its independence, with most Western nations recognizing the young state.

The decision resulted in angry protests in Serbia, with mobs attacking European and U.S. institutions. These days, security at the Kosovar-Serbian border remains fragile.

Earlier this week EU officials called on the United Nations to ensure that security is tight along the border.

"There have been attacks on this border, burning of containers and so on, so UNMIK has a very important role to play," Rupel, the Slovenian foreign minister, said Monday after a meeting in Brussels.

Kosovo is dominated by 90 percent ethnic Albanians, except for the northern part of the former province, which already has parallel institutional structures and is dominated by Serbs, a majority of who refuse to recognize Kosovo's independence.

Observers in Pristina fear that the northern part will force a partition of the country, a move Kosovo's leadership, along with the roughly 17,000 troops of the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping unit KFOR and the U.N. Mission in Kosovo police mission, is intended to prevent.