The decision on “whether the the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) should be offered to Serbia for signing” will be taken today in the meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg. Serbia has proposed to sign SAA with some content alterations.

Holland and Belgium proposed to have the contents of SAA altered, but the proposal was not adopted yesterday at a meeting of senior European officials. The two continue to demand that Brussels should not sign the deal with Serbia until full cooperation with the Hague Tribunal is achieved.

The EU is searching for a compromise in order to give Serbia a positive signal and at the same time, appease the demands of Holland and Belgium, said Dimitrij Rupel, the Slovenian Foreign Minister, whose country is presiding over the 27-nation bloc.

The Slovenian Foreign Minister said that “as far as he is concerned”, most of the EU and European administration support the signing of the SAA as soon as today, but that several member countries have “serious reservations.”

The divisions regarding the signing of the SAA exist not only in the EU, but within the Serbian government as well. Even though the outgoing government initialed the agreement last November and gave authority to its Depty Premier Bozidar Delic, DS, to sign the agreement, ministers of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and New Serbia (NS), led by DSS leader and Prime Minster Vojislav Kostunica, are strongly opposed to the signing, saying it effectively recognizes the Kosovo Albanians’ unilateral declaration independence.

On the other side, ministers of the Democratic Party (DS) and G17 Plus, led by DS leader and Serbian president Boris Tadic, announced that the SAA would be sign as soon as it is offered by the EU, stating that the deal is “firstly a trade agreement and that it would not threaten the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Serbia”.