EU's Ashton hails unique peace effort by Serbia, Kosovo PMs

As the EU readied to open its door to Serbia in reward for easing ties with Kosovo, the bloc's chief diplomat Catherine Ashton on Thursday hailed the premiers of both sides for a peace drive that could foster regional stability. After 200 hours of talks at 20 meetings in Ashton's sixth-storey Brussels office, the work done by the prime ministers of Kosovo and Serbia, Hashim Thaci and Ivica Dacic, "gives a certainty to the future" in the Balkans, she said. The former foes showed "a willingness to work through important and difficult issues, both respectful of their own red lines but very aware of each others' red lines too," Ashton told a small group of journalists. The meetings followed an EU-brokered round of talks from March 2011 to reduce friction between the two sides. Late last year Ashton decided to take the dialogue to prime ministerial level and in April the two men agreed a peace plan which is currently being implemented. The culmination of the peace drive will be endorsed by European Union leaders at a two-day summit Thursday and Friday, through a formal agreement to start EU membership talks in January with Serbia, which applied for entry back in 2009. Kosovo meanwhile is also strengthening EU ties via a stabilisation agreement with the 28-nation bloc. Ashton said that at their first encounter, the EU handed the pair a list of issues to make life easier for ordinary people along the border after former Serbian province Kosovo unilaterally broke away from Belgrade in 2008 -- issues such as recognising school diplomas or vehicle licence-plates. "We made it very clear from the beginning that it couldn't be 'here is the EU plan'. It had to be their plan," she said. "So they took aspects of what they felt was important and then they added to the list." "This has to be owned by them," she added. Still on the to-do list was the mutual recognition of property, how to both attend international meetings and sports events, and the more difficult question of missing people. Ashton said she and her team acted as facilitators throughout, intervening only when necessary and offering technical help if needed in a format that "worked really well" and which the EU will continue at least until her mandate ends later next year. "Meeting here as you are sitting around the table, they've found it a good way to operate and they've found it a good venue," she said. "As long as they want to do this we will do it as well." 'Know each other well' Because of the time spent together the two premiers "now know each other well. So the ability to have a conversation and be able to speak up has grown and grown". Though they remained "very much prime ministers with responsibilities", she said she believed that they have developed respect for each other. Ashton reiterated that the issue of formal recognition of Kosovo by Serbia had never been a requirement of the process but that all the agreements reached so far and those clinched in the future would be "binding" on both sides. Belgrade along with five EU states does not recognise Kosovo as an independent nation. Serbia hopes to become the 29th member of the bloc, following in the footsteps of neighbour Croatia, the newest EU member who joined in July. Also among the six nations once part of the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia joined the EU in 2004. The latest hurdle overcome by Serbia in its drive to join the EU was a local November ballot in northern Kosovo, a longtime trouble-spot due to an ethnic Serb majority living in that region. The poll had to be re-run in early December due to tensions. About 120,000 ethnic Serbs live in Kosovo, whose 1.8-million-strong population is mainly Albanian. But 40,000 ethnic Serbs, who have recognised neither Kosovo's independence nor the authorities in Pristina since the end of the 1998-1999 war, inhabit the north. Joining can take years as would-be EU members need to negotiate 35 so-called chapters before finally winning entry into the European club.