VIENNA - The European Union must solve the status issue of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo if it is to enhance its credibility abroad, the Austrian chancellor said in an interview published Wednesday.
The 27-member bloc must show it can "solve problems at home in Europe," Alfred Gusenbauer told the Austria Press Agency, describing Kosovo as the "last big unsolved issue of the 20th century."
EU leaders have already agreed "to see the final solution on the issue of Kosovo's status and following consequences as a European challenge," he noted.
Gusenbauer also called on Pristina and Belgrade to act responsibly to avoid violence in the coming weeks when Kosovo is expected to declare independence unilaterally, and to cooperate with the EU to find a solution on the province's status.
Protection for the Serbian minority in the majority ethnic-Albanian province was now a key issue, he said.
Kosovo has been run by a UN mission since June 1999 when a NATO bombing campaign drove out Serb forces who had fought ethnic Albanian separatists.
The Austrian chancellor also argued that to condition a yet-to-be-signed Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) between the EU and Serbia -- considered the first step towards its integration into the bloc -- on Belgrade's delivery of war-criminal Radovan Karadzic was "not fair."
One can "not expect Belgrade to deliver a concrete result if it can't be delivered," he said.
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01/02/2008 10:19 GMT