The European Union on Monday gave the green light for a mission to help ease Kosovo's transition to independence from Serbia, but with no launch date given, diplomatic sources said.
The 27 EU member states gave their formal agreement to the 2,000-strong mission, mostly police and justice officials, the day after Serbia's pro-West President Boris Tadic won re-election. EU ambassadors in Brussels had given preliminary approval to the plans last Friday.
The mission will not be deployed until it gets the signal to go, a decision which would "in principle" require a meeting of EU foreign ministers, one of the sources said. The next scheduled foreign ministers meeting is in Brussels on February 18. The EU is keen to have its mission in place before Kosovo breaks away.
Most EU nations, and the United States, are ready to recognise Kosovo when it declares independence, despite staunch opposition from Serbia and its ally Russia. The length of the EU mission, expected to cost some 200 million euros (296 million dollars) in 2008, is unclear. However diplomats have regularly spoken of Kosovo being under "supervised independence" for five to 10 years.
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