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Protesting too much on Kosovo

Mark Mardell
8 Sep 07, 09:22 PM

"The more they talk about unity, the more suspicious I am," said a colleague as we left one of the news conferences at the end of this EU foreign ministers' meeting.

It's true that they probably did protest too much about the need for unity after what amounted to a failure to reach a common approach on Kosovo. But this is exactly the sort of practical problem that should worry enthusiasts for a common EU foreign policy.

A crunch is coming over . If there is no agreement on the future of the place by 10 December, the UN deadline, it is likely that Kosovo will declare independence from Serbia. It's also likely the US will immediately recognise it.

Already one Serbian minister is threatening that troops will go in. Few think that is more than sabre-rattling, but such talk is worrying. Russia will back Serbia's refusal to recognise Kosovo. But what will the EU do?

France, Britain and Germany want to recognise it even without UN support. Others, led by Greece and Romania, are opposed.

Common sense might tell you who is going to win that argument, but it's not as easy as you might you think. One foreign minister of the Big Three described the Greek position as "a nightmare".

Those who want to get rid of vetoes in foreign affairs point to these cases. How daft, they say, that Greece can stop the EU's most powerful countries getting their way. But UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband believes it's more important to have a slower, legitimate policy that every single country backs, than a more efficient one that papers over the cracks.

But that is almost a philosophical debate. The problem for those who want the EU to have clout on the world stage is that it will look ridiculous if it cannot reach a common position, or reaches one that looks dithery and peppered with caveats.

But will the Big Three go it alone? The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, insists that after Iraq Europe must always be united on big foreign policy issues.

The Bulgarian foreign minister suggests a conference in Sofia could sort things out, though it's hard to see how.

But good news for one of the countries hoping to join the EU.

One male foreign minister from a founder member state nudged colleagues and suggested he would welcome much closer bilateral relations with .

The Danish referendum

Mark Mardell
8 Sep 07, 04:58 PM

The Danes will have a referendum... but don't hold the front page.

The Danish foreign minister has indicated the Danish parliament and government want a referendum to get rid of one of , won in Edinburgh in 1992.

They want to opt into the justice policy set out in .

When I first heard this as a bit of gossip, I got quite excited: any popular vote on further European integration would in effect be a vote on the treaty itself.

But when I checked further, the minister had also set out a timetable: the referendum could be held in 2009, after the treaty has been voted through by parliament.

Apologies, by the way, for suggesting the Danish prime minister was a conservative. Many people wrote in to point out he's a liberal and sits alongside the British in the European Parliament, as part of the .

Anthem and flag

Mark Mardell
8 Sep 07, 12:17 PM

EU foreign ministers in Viana do Castelo watch from balconies and a window as a local Portuguese band plays the European anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy.