EU Foreign Ministers will on Monday lift oil sanctions and a ban on flights to Serbia if the democratisation process appears to have been consolidated, Commission officials said yesterday.
The meeting in Luxembourg will also look at ways to assist Serbia financially, both in immediate humanitarian aid and in sending a mission to assess longer-term reconstruction needs.
And it is clear that most of such aid is likely to be provided whether or not the new government is willing to hand over President Milosevic to The Hague war crimes tribunal. The EU wants to place as few political obstacles as possible in the path of the new regime.
Some €32 million are already committed for this year in humanitarian assistance, and the Commission, controversially, has since May been seeking agreement to a provision for a budget allocation of €2.3 billion for structural assistance to a "democratic Serbia" for the 2000 to 2006 period.
That would push up the total aid allocation to the Balkans for the period to €5.3 billion, but agreement has yet to be forthcoming from the member-states and the European Parliament. The Commissioner for External Relations, Mr Chris Patten, told journalists that the "EU stood ready to greet the new Serbia with open arms". Ministers had promised in Evian last month that the defeat of Mr Milosevic would open up a new relationship and "what we want to do now", he said, "is what we had promised to do".
He said the long-term funding would have to be agreed by the member-states. "There can't be any question of paying for what is needed in Serbia out of the current Balkans allocation."
Determined not to be caught wrong-footed, the Commission last week set in train procedures necessary to lift some of the sanctions quickly and the French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine, for the EU Presidency, was able on Thursday night to promise Dr Vojislav Kostunica a review as early as Monday.
There are various forms of sanctions in place:
a UN ban on shipments of arms or of goods that might be used for repression;
an EU flight ban and oil embargo, both of which are almost certain to be lifted on Monday;
an EU visa ban on Mr Milosevic and his entourage as well as a freezing of their assets abroad.
Regarding the latter, Mr Patten promised to talk to Dr Kostunica. "We do not want to allow the worst elements of the regime to be able to salt away abroad money looted from the Serbian people," he said.
Asked if aid to Serbia would be conditional on willingness to hand over Mr Milosevic to The Hague, Mr Patten insisted that different forms of aid attracted "different forms of conditionality".
EU humanitarian aid and "democratisation aid" have continued to flow to Serbia during the last few years. Help has ranged from aid to refugees returning from Kosovo, or to the elderly, or in assisting the independent media or schools run by opposition-ruled municipalities. The approach, which Mr Patten claimed yesterday had been vindicated, has been to try to make clear that the Union distinguished between the Serbian regime and its people.
In the medium term the EU, whose diplomats have close contacts with the opposition, sees as a priority the integration of Serbia into the Balkans Stability Pact process, a regional conference whose increasing mutual interdependence is being financed by 40 donor countries. As with the newly democratised Croatia, that will be followed by the offer of a closer relationship with the EU and the carrot of eventual membership.
Reuter adds:
The United States said yesterday it would talk to allies about allowing Yugoslavia to rejoin the IMF and World Bank.