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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| EU set for Serbia membership talks | EU set for Serbia membership talks |
| (31 minutes later) | |
| EU leaders have agreed to open accession talks with Serbia, whose bid to join the EU was long delayed by a dispute over Kosovo. | EU leaders have agreed to open accession talks with Serbia, whose bid to join the EU was long delayed by a dispute over Kosovo. |
| EU-Serbia negotiations would begin in January 2014 at the latest, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said at a Brussels EU summit. | |
| In April, the EU brokered a key deal between Serbia and Kosovo, which broke away from Belgrade in a war in 1999. | In April, the EU brokered a key deal between Serbia and Kosovo, which broke away from Belgrade in a war in 1999. |
| Talks on an EU association agreement with Kosovo will also get under way. | Talks on an EU association agreement with Kosovo will also get under way. |
| The EU summit also welcomed the entry of Croatia into the 27-nation bloc, which will happen on Monday. A big celebration is to take place in the Croatian capital Zagreb on Sunday night. | |
| Croatia fought a bitter war against Serb forces during the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. It will become the EU's 28th member, and the second from former Yugoslavia, after Slovenia. | |
| Mr Van Rompuy said EU officials would visit both Serbia and Kosovo on Monday, in a sign of the EU's commitment to their integration with the bloc. | |
| Many countries recognise Kosovo as independent, but Serbia is among those, including Russia and China, that do not. | |
| Five of the 27 EU countries do not recognise Kosovo: Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus. | |
| Under the April deal the ethnic Albanian government in Kosovo accepted a high degree of autonomy for Serb-majority areas in the territory's north. Belgrade insisted that the deal did not mean Serbian recognition of Kosovo's independence. |