Serbia will not join EU if Kosovo goes -- paper

BELGRADE, Aug 9 (Reuters) Serbia would not join the European Union if the EU recognised its breakaway province of Kosovo as an independent state, the pro-government Belgrade daily Politika said today.

In a lengthy commentary given front-page prominence one day before international envoys were due in the Serbian capital to start a last-ditch round of negotiations, the paper said the EU should not follow Washington's lead if it recognised Kosovo.

''Serbia is convinced the shortcut the United States plans to take to unilaterally recognise the independence of Kosovo is not the road the European Union intends to follow,'' Politika said.

''However, if the EU decided to follow suit, it would make it impossible for Belgrade to seek EU membership, because that would clash with the constitution.'' Despite Serbia's strong nationalism, bouts of anti-European rhetoric, and recent heavy diplomatic reliance on Russia, Brussels believes leaving the country out of the EU indefinitely would create an unstable 'black hole' in Europe.

Polls show 70 per cent of Serbs want to join the Union. Politika quoted Serb officials as saying there is a ''real threat'' the Serbs will no longer want to join the EU if Kosovo is allowed to secede with its backing.

Serbia is still some years away from EU membership, having been dragged backwards economically and politically by the wars of the 1990s over the breakup of Yugoslavia, stoked in the main by the late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

In its battle to prevent the secession of Kosovo, the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica stresses the primacy of ownership, sovereignty and territorial rights.

The West, which launched military intervention in 1999 to halt the killing of Albanians by Milosevic's Serb forces during an insurgency, believes the right to self-determination for Kosovo's 90-per cent Albanian majority must be paramount.

The province has been run by the United Nations for eight years.

Politika quoted sources close to Serb President Boris Tadic as saying it was unlikely the EU would ''yield to US pressure'' and recognise Kosovo without UN Security Council approval.

But UN approval has been blocked by Serbia's ally Russia, which has the power of veto on the Security Council. Britain, France and Germany back Washington on independence, but EU members Spain, Slovakia and a few others have misgivings.

Kostunica and Tadic were due to meet a ''troika'' of envoys from the United States, the EU and Russia in Belgrade tomorrow to discuss a new round of negotiations on Kosovo, conceded with reluctance by the West in the face of Russian insistence.

REUTERS GL BD1646