EU team tours Balkan neighbours

Solana (right) wants to draw Belgrade closer to the EU

Senior European Union officials are visiting the Balkans to discuss progress towards EU accession.

The delegation, headed by EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana, is pressing Belgrade to co-operate with the Hague tribunal, correspondents say.

They also want Belgrade to encourage ethnic Serbs to vote in elections this month in troubled Kosovo province.

The delegation earlier visited Croatia, which hopes to join the EU in 2007 - but accession talks have not yet begun.

In the capital Zagreb, Mr Solana urged Croatia to resolve a border dispute with Slovenia in "the spirit of Europe - that is, the spirit of dialogue, negotiations, the spirit which is the opposite of violence". Slovenia joined the EU in May.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said he was hoping to visit Slovenia in the coming months to meet the new leadership, following Prime Minister Anton Rop's defeat in general elections at the weekend.

Slovenia and Croatia, which emerged from the break-up of the old Yugoslavia in 1991, have yet to fully define about 1% of their land and sea border, including a key outlet for Slovene vessels to international waters.

Belgrade's ambition for EU membership has been undermined by its frosty relations with the Hague tribunal and the fragility of Serbia's union with Montenegro.

On Tuesday the United Nations' chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said Serbia and Montenegro had two months to hand over war crimes suspects before she reported to the UN Security Council.