Major European powers will endeavor today to drum up wide EU support for recognizing Kosovo should it declare independence and secure a commitment to deploy a civilian mission to ease the transition.
At a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Britain, France, Germany and Italy -- who with the US are ready to back an independence move expected next month -- will underline that Kosovo's future is a European responsibility.
In a letter to their EU counterparts on Friday, the four nations underlined that last-ditch talks between Serbia and Kosovo had failed and warned of the need to plan carefully for the future.
Officials and experts have said the four will try to build momentum for their cause over the course of the week, which will end in a summit of EU leaders with Kosovo high on the agenda.
They are also expected to affirm that a version of "supervised independence" suggested by former UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari is the best way forward, with Kosovo likely to warn next month that it could break away in spring.
"The question really is: what is the sequencing and the next steps as we go forward?" a European official said on Friday.
At least four EU nations -- Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia and Spain -- are reluctant to recognize a unilateral declaration of independence, in part because of the precedent its might set for separatists nearer to home.
A few others are hesitating, to varying degrees, despite strong memories of Europe's failure to halt the wars that broke former Yugoslavia apart, particularly the conflict in Bosnia.
"European nations and the European Union need to show real leadership on the issue," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Friday. "Because we know from the mid-1990s the costs of Europe wringing its hands and failing to provide the leadership that is absolutely essential in the western Balkans."
The ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo -- one of Europe's poorest regions -- is impatient for independence but they have committed to coordinate any move to break away with their EU and US partners.
However Serbia, backed by its ally Russia, considers the southern province to be an integral part of its territory and history and is only willing to grant wide autonomy.
Russia, which is also concerned about the fallout for its own separatist regions, has threatened to veto such a move at the UN, forcing the EU and US allies to move on outside the UN umbrella.
Kosovo has been managed under UN Security Council resolution 1244, which was agreed in 1999 after NATO bombed Belgrade to stop a crackdown on the ethnic Albanians.
The resolution set up the UN mission, UNMIK, which has run Kosovo ever sinces.
The EU has been preparing an 1,800-strong police mission and civilian office which it would like to send in to take over from UNMIK and smooth the handover of power to the local authorities.
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