At a conference on Europe’s future held last October in Brussels, Robert Cooper, a high-level European Union foreign policy strategist, made an interesting observation. "I like the idea of 27 countries struggling to agree with each other. It is rather undignified, but it is a powerful message," he said.
Well, when it comes to the EU’s policy on Serbia and Kosovo, one can certainly agree with the "undignified" bit. Something of a low point was reached this week at the regular monthly meeting of EU foreign ministers. It produced an offer to Serbia of an "interim political agreement", dangling the carrots of freer trade, visa liberalisation and educational exchanges in the vague hope that this would cause Serb voters to back Boris Tadic, the moderate incumbent, in this weekend’s presidential election run-off.
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