EU, NATO urges Serbia to reaffirm pro-West line

BRUSSELS, May 9 (Reuters) The European Union and NATO raised concerns today at the election of a hardline nationalist as speaker of the Serbian parliament and urged formation of a government that reaffirmed a pro-West stance.

A statement from the German EU presidency said the Serbian Radical Party, of which new parliament speaker Tomislav Nikolic is deputy chairman, had always been strongly opposed to Serbia forging closer ties with the European Union.

''The EU Presidency noted with concern yesterday's election,'' the statement said.

''The EU Presidency calls upon all reform-orientated parties in Belgrade to use the period until May 15 envisaged under Serbia's constitution to form a democratic, majority-based government which reaffirms the pro-European orientation of Serbian policy,'' it added.

The EU calred hours later by NATO, which urged Belgrade in a statement to come up with a government ''that would continue Serbia's path to Euro-Atlantic integration''.

Nikolic was elected speaker on Tuesday, stirring bitter memories of the rule of late former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

He was backed by the Democratic Party of Serbia of outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, and Milosevic's weakened Socialists.

The Radicals oppose handing fugitive general Ratko Mladic to the war crimes court, a key European Union demand blocking Serbia's membership hopes. They are cool to the EU and NATO, and suspicious of economic liberalism and market reforms.

A Jan. 21 election produced a hung parliament and the period since has seen fruitless coalition talks between Kostunica and the Democrats of pro-Western President Boris Tadic.

Kostunica's support for Nikolic has been seen as a possible precursor to an alliance with the Radicals, or an effort to pressurise Tadic into joining Kostunica on his terms.

If there is no government by May 14, new elections must be called. The campaign could coincide with the traumatic loss of Serbia's Kosovo province, whose Albanian majority expects to win independence by the summer with Western backing.

The European Union, wary of a nationalist backlash on Kosovo and seeing a Serbia on course for EU membership as vital to Balkan stability, has urged Kostunica and Tadic to unite.

REUTERS PJ PM2130