EU Offers Serbs Trade and Travel Deal Before Poll

European governments last night offered Serbia a trade and travel pact in an attempt to secure a victory for a pro-western democrat in this weekend's Serbian presidential election.

A meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels delivered the unusually blatant intervention in Balkan politics amid widespread fears that an extreme nationalist will win the contest on Sunday, only weeks before the EU is expected to recognize the independence of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo.

President Boris Tadic, a pro-western moderate, lost in the first round by five percentage points to Tomislav Nikolic of the ultra-nationalist Radical party. There is an air of panic in Brussels that Nikolic could win this weekend, returning Serbia to the nationalist isolation of the Milosevic years in the 1990s, turning it into Russia's orbit and putting it on collision course with the west over Kosovo.

Most EU governments wanted to sign an accord with Belgrade paving the way for Serbia to open EU membership talks, but the Dutch balked, insisting that Serbia had first to arrest and extradite the main war crimes suspect from the Bosnia war, General Ratko Mladic.

Hours of argument in Brussels resulted instead on a political agreement, to be signed next week, liberalizing trade between Serbia and the EU and making it easier for Serbs to travel to the EU.

In a move aimed at influencing Serbian voters before the poll, the EU justice commissioner, Franco Frattini, will visit Belgrade tomorrow to announce a relaxation of visa rules. "We want to send a clear message to citizens of Serbia that their future lies in the European Union," said Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy supremo.