THE VICTORY of the pro-European Boris Tadic in Sunday's presidential election in Serbia represents something less than a clear-cut embrace of the European Union's value system. Tadic received only 3 percent more votes than his radical nationalist opponent, Tomislav Nikolic, who wants to bring Serbia into Russia's orbit and emulate Vladimir Putin's model of an authoritarian state.
Still, the election of Tadic means a calamitous outcome has been avoided. Nikolic's Serbian Radical Party said it would freeze relations with the EU if he won and invite Russia to set up military bases in Serbia. Now it is up to the EU to make the most of the opportunity that Tadic's victory has preserved.
The 27 EU democracies must carefully manage two interlaced issues: Kosovo's drive to declare independence from Serbia, and Serbia's ambivalent pursuit of membership in the EU. If the EU fails to supervise a peaceable separation of Kosovo from Serbia and to smooth Serbia's path to EU admission, Europeans accustomed to post-nationalist cooperation may find their southern Balkan flank riven by the kinds of ethnic and nationalist conflicts the EU was created to overcome.
Shepherding Kosovo and Serbia toward less-than-perfect compromises will not be easy. Serbs traditionally regard Kosovo, whose population now is 90 percent Albanian Muslim, as their religious and historic heartland. Serbia's moderate nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, has threatened to suspend relations with the EU if it recognizes a Kosovar declaration of independence not authorized by the United Nations Security Council - where Russia wields a veto. He has also warned that Serbia would stop energy and water supplies from going to Kosovo.
To make matters even dicier, Belgium and the Netherlands recently prevented the EU from signing a Stabilization and Association Agreement with Serbia - the usual first step toward EU membership - because Serbia has not delivered fugitive war criminals, such as the notorious Ratko Mladic, to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague.
This principled stance is certainly understandable. Rule of law is a keystone of the EU's value system. But the interests of Europe and the Balkan region will best be served if Serbia is coaxed along the path to EU accession even as final acceptance remains contingent on extraditing Serbia's wanted war criminals. By the same token, Kosovo's ardent desire for admission to the EU can be used as an incentive for patience: The Kosovars should be told to forgo a unilateral declaration of independence and wait until there can be a negotiated agreement with Serbia that is blessed by the EU.
If Serbia and Kosovo wish to join the club of European democracies, they should be willing to sacrifice a little national sovereignty for the benefits of peace and stability. That has become the European way.
