BRUSSELS - Romania threatened on Tuesday to derail European Union plans to grant Serbia membership candidate status in a row over minority rights in the former Yugoslav state, EU diplomats said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Monday EU governments were ready to agree to make Serbia an official EU candidate, in recognition of its democratic reforms, its capture of war crime fugitives and improved relations with neighbouring Kosovo.
But at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday, the Romanian delegation unexpectedly refused to sign the agreement, demanding guarantees that the rights of a small group of ethnic Romanians in Serbia be better protected.
Bucharest said it wanted to hold a debate on the issue at a summit of EU heads of state and government on Thursday and Friday, which had initially been expected to formally approve Serbia's new status, diplomats said.
“Romania wants to postpone the talks until the summit, but others don't agree and will try to resolve the problem today,” Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.
There are about 30 000 ethnic Romanians living in Serbia. Some members of the 40 000-strong ethnic Vlach community consider themselves to be Romanian as well, while other Vlachs think of themselves as Serb.
Romanian President Traian Basescu said late last year that Serbia should grant ethnic Romanians living on its territory the right to education in the Romanian language and access to services in Romanian Orthodox churches.
“We ask (Serbian authorities) to grant them the right to tuition in Romanian, to have an Orthodox church, to have a newspaper in their language, to have the right to tune into Romanian television or have a broadcast in Romanian,” Basescu told a gathering of ethnic Romanians after meeting Serbian President Boris Tadic.
Belgrade appeared to have been taken unawares by the Romanian move and had no immediate reaction.
However, Bor, a regional TV channel that broadcasts in eastern Serbia, home to most of the country's Vlach community, said it would start to complement its programming with subtitles in an approved Vlach language. It said Serbia's ministry of culture was funding the innovation.
Parts of the Vlach community appeared underwhelmed by Romania's intervention however.
“There are no problems about the status of the Vlach minority in Serbia,” said Radisa Dragojevic, head of the National Council of Vlachs. “The Romanian authorities want to see Belgrade calling us Romanians and our community is opposed to that. We consider Serbia our homeland and apart from some common roots have no ties with Romania,” he said.
Serbia failed to win coveted EU candidate status last December due to opposition from several EU governments worried about tensions in the north of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia.
But in recent days Belgrade appeared to win the backing of most EU states, including Germany, which had opposed its candidacy last year, after agreeing last week to a compromise spelling out how Kosovo should be represented in regional meetings.
The formula sidestepped the issue of Kosovo's independence, which Serbia refuses to recognise but addressed one of the most thorny issues that have marred relations between the two since Kosovo declared independence in 2008.
One EU diplomat, familiar with Tuesday's talks, said last-minute diplomacy might still persuade Romania to agree to give Serbia candidate status.
“Our hope is that they are going to give ground. At this stage all big member states are working towards an agreement and it's only Romania that's holding out,” he said. – Reuters