"As everyone knows, all is ready for the signing, it is now necessary for the political condition to be met, that is, for Serbia to completely cooperate with the Hague Tribunal," Christina Gallach said in Brussels today.

She also added that an interim political deal, which the European Union offered to Serbia at its Jan. 28 session instead of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA), will "now in all likelihood not be signed".

But today, the spokeswoman for the EU foreign policy chief said the "door was left open for the agreement to be signed during the next meeting of the Council of Ministers."

She did not specify whether there were indications Serbia could conclude its Hague Tribunal cooperation by that time, or if the Union was willing to compromise on the issue.

When on Feb. 4, one day after the presidential elections in the country, Brussels decided to send the text of the interim agreement to Belgrade, at the same time going ahead with its Kosovo mission plans, it threw Serbia into political turmoil that almost ended in the collapse of the cabinet.

President Boris Tadić and his Democrats (DS) believe that Serbia should continue on its EU integration path irrelevant of the Brussels' action over Kosovo, while Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) advocates a freeze on closer ties in light of what it sees as the EU's hostile moves aiding the province's unilateral declaration of independence.

But unlike where it concerned the so-called interim political deal, Deputy Prime Minister Božidar Đelić was earlier authorized by the government to sign the SAA itself.

Both parties are opposed to the announced sending of an EU mission to Kosovo, and both have in the meantime agreed on a common state policy that will include a set of undisclosed measures, should ethnic Albanian leadership in Kosovo decide to declare secession, a move the authorities in Belgrade say will be declared illegal.