Luxembourg - The European Union's decision to sign a key pre-membership deal with Serbia on Tuesday is a huge diplomatic gamble. It is intended to boost pro-EU forces in the country ahead of snap elections on May 11, but it could have the opposite effect by infuriating nationalists, experts warn.
"People in Serbia read the newspapers, they have noticed that the EU is looking for ways to support (the party of pro-EU President Boris) Tadic," Dr Dusan Reljic, expert on Balkan politics at Berlin's SWP Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
On Tuesday EU foreign ministers offered to sign a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) - a document setting out how Serbia should bring its economic, political and judicial systems into line with EU norms, and how the EU should help - immediately.
EU leaders hope that the move will help pro-European politicians in the country remain in power after the May 11 elections.
"Our concern is to give the maximum support to the partisans" of EU integration, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said after an informal meeting with EU and Balkan counterparts in late March.
But Reljic warned that the offer to sign the SAA "could backfire" if it is seen as an EU attempt to interfere in Serb politics or buy acceptance for the independence of Kosovo, Serbia's predominantly ethnic-Albanian breakaway province.
"The promise of enlargement is an enormously powerful instrument for transformation, (but) losing territory is something which I feel has more importance for many people in Serbia than giving a vague promise that you might one day become a member," he said.
Over the last year, the SAA has shot up the political ladder from being a relatively innocent cooperation deal to being the EU's main piece of leverage in Serbia.
Since June, the EU has reopened talks on the SAA but first said that it would only initial it once Serbia proved full cooperation with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Then the EU said it would initial the document but it would not sign it without full ICTY cooperation, and finally that it would sign it but asked governments not to ratify it without ICTY cooperation.
Experts say that each time, the move was made in order to boost the prestige of pro-EU forces in Serbia - a country where the majority of the population favours eventual EU membership.
That impression appeared confirmed on Tuesday when Serbia's pro-EU foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, said the offer of signing the SAA would make the election "a referendum on our membership in the EU."
But analysts question the impact of the offer, given the notorious difficulty of presenting EU treaties to the public.
"It's a weak message - the only thing the Serb in the street would be likely to react to would be if EU accession itself were coming markedly closer," Michael Emerson, head of security studies at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, said.
As soon as the offer was made, the DSS party of Serbia's acting prime minister, nationalist Vojislav Kostunica, said it would never accept the SAA, which it sees as an attempt to buy Serb acquiescence to the independence of Kosovo.
"It is certain that some part of the political leadership" will continue to make that argument before the election, but "whether the population will buy it is another matter," Emerson said.
The DSS comment is especially important because analysts say that neither the main nationalist party in Serbia, the SRS, nor Tadic's pro-EU DS is likely to win a majority in the elections - putting Kostunica's party in the position of king-maker.
And with feelings in Serbia still running high over what many see as the EU's violation of Serb sovereignty, it remains to be seen whether the offer of an SAA will give the green light to Serbia's pro-European forces - or wave a red rag in front of the nationalists.
