A 2,000-STRONG EU mission to oversee policing and justice in Kosovo could suffer further delays after leaders of the newly independent state rejected a deal on the mission's deployment that had been agreed by Brussels, Serbia and United Nations officials.
The EU had hoped to deploy the mission soon after Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders declared independence from Serbia in February, but it has been blocked by opposition from Belgrade, by Serbia's main ally, Russia, and by the ethnic Serbs who dominate much of northern Kosovo.
Serbs see the EU mission as a symbol of Kosovo's sovereignty - which they vow never to accept - and instead want policing and justice powers to remain with the UN mission that has run Kosovo since 1999, when Nato bombing ended a brutal Serb crackdown on separatist rebels.
Serb leaders said in recent days that EU and UN officials had accepted their demands that the EU monitoring mission in Kosovo should be approved by the UN Security Council and should formally remain neutral on the question of Kosovo's status.
The most contentious part of the plan concerns policing in northern Kosovo, home to most of the new country's 120,000 Serbs, who refuse to acknowledge the authority of the ethnic Albanian government in Pristina.
According to local media reports, the new plan envisages two separate chains of command for Albanian and Serb policemen in Kosovo.
In majority Albanian areas, police would be under the EU umbrella; police in northern Kosovo would report to the UN administration.
"We respect all initiatives but we have said that Kosovo is an independent country," said President Fatmir Sejdiu, standing alongside prime minister and former rebel Hashim Thaci.
"These points are interfering with the constitution of Kosovo," Mr Sejdiu added.
Brussels hopes the mission - dubbed EUlex - will be operational in December and hundreds of staff are already in Kosovo awaiting a handover of some powers from the UN administration.
Kosovo's leaders fear that changes to the original EU-supported plan for independence could embolden Serbia and lead to the division of their tiny country along ethnic lines.
