Mark Mardell's Euroblog

Summit over: Brussels update

• Mark Mardell
• 14 Dec 07, 05:48 PM

Most important news by far:

The European Union has agreed in principle to send a force to Kosovo some time in the new year. The French president said that Kosovan independence was "inevitable".

Cyprus went along with this, saying it was the day after the signing of the Lisbon treaty and there was a need to show unity. But they questioned the legal basis for sending the force.

Gordon Brown said it was "very important" that the EU had decided to "manage the next stage".

Foreign Secretary David Miliband suggested the mood was changing. He said there was a real feeling Europe was coming together from the spectrum of opinion that was on display at his first meeting of foreign ministers in July.

Guffaws of laughter when he was asked to correct the impression he didn't like coming to Brussels: he listed a lot of things to do with globalisation that he was excited by.

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Kosovo with a little fudge on top

• Mark Mardell
• 14 Dec 07, 12:00 AM

This is likely to be the shortest European Union summit on record. It starts at ten and is due to be over after lunch.

British officials say this is the way to do business: short sharp meetings with a couple of clear conclusions rather than forty pages summing up the last six months.

Diplomats say it is a good symbol of an EU that has agreed its last tinkering with institutions for a while and is getting down to business that matters to people of Europe.

I wonder. While the major topic open for discussion, Kosovo, is of vital importance, the other main item on the agenda is a classic piece of Euro-waffle with fudge topping.

They're setting up a group to look at challenges to the European Union in 2030.

This started life as an election promise by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is determined to stop Turkey from ever joining the European Union.

He proposed setting up a "group of the wise" to look explicitly at the limits and borders of the European Union.

This has morphed into a "reflection group" with a brief so wide that it's rather surprising there isn't room for Mr Sarkozy's main idea.

The group won't be allowed to reflect upon current politics, institutional matters, or the EU budget. Their cogitation will be confined to economic success, social cohesion, reaching out to citizens, the rule of law, security, migration, energy, climate change, crime and terrorism.

The closest their brief comes to mentioning the size and shape of the European Union is tasking them to look at the stability and prosperity of "both the Union and the wider region".

I know "Britain wins battle in Europe" is not exactly a brilliant headline but this does look like a Foreign Office victory to me with all the UK concerns highlighted and the original purpose emasculated.

Of course Mr Sarkozy may try to change the wording. A French diplomat told me that the brief doesn't exclude looking at future membership of the EU.

Much may depend on who chairs this committee. A number of names are floating around, including the former Prime Minister of Spain, Felipe Gonzalez, and the ex-president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

But the knottiest and most immediate problem before European leaders is Kosovo, which is still officially a part of Serbia.

As far as the biggest EU countries, and America, are concerned, negotiations are over, independence is the only way ahead, and the blueprint of Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari is as good a plan as there is.

But Russia will block anything like that being adopted by the UN on the 19th December. The big players seem confident that the Kosovan Government will wait until after Serbian presidential elections on 3rd February before making the declaration.

The ball really is then in the European Union's court. It is all the more poignant because Slovenia, once part of Yugoslavia, holds the presidency of the EU in the new year.

It was the first state to break away from Yugoslavia and the only nation formed from that country that has so far joined the European Union.

But there is no agreement on the biggest question: if and when to recognise the new state.

The biggest EU countries (France, Germany and Britain) are likely to do so quickly. Others, particularly Cyprus, are worried about the precedent this sets. So much for a united EU foreign policy.

So, over lunch, the leaders will attempt to find ground they can agree on. Ask French, German or British diplomats what they hope to achieve and in each case the answer is "unity".

They hope to persuade the doubters that everything has been done to bring the two sides together and that the talks between Kosovo and Serbia have been exhaustive and have been exhausted.

They want agreement to send a police and military mission to Kosovo, and detailed talk of personnel and purchasing of hardware is already underway.

But the British, at least, think that when it comes to the crunch this should be part of a package which includes recognition: there's no point sending a team in for the sake of it.

Also on the agenda: flexicurity and the EU and globalisation.

UPDATE ON KOSOVO:

As the ministers troop in the cry is, as predicted, “unity!”.

But this is the reality. The Romanian Prime Minister says “there is a broad interest to sustain a common European position".

"But there is one problem where we have a clear position," he says. "We won’t recognise an independent Kosovo because of the impact of the stability of the region.”

Those who know more about this than me tell me he’s done a complete U-turn because he can’t get backing in parliament to recognise Kosovo.

On the editors' blog, the editor of the World Tonight Alistair Burnett, who’s very knowledgeable about the area expresses his frustration about the silence over this issue from Europe. But it's very complex.

For instance, one of the things that some hope will come out of today's session is an argument to dangle a quicker path to EU membership before Serbia.

But the Dutch are unhappy that means dropping the old tough position on bringing war criminals to justice. .

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