Serbian leadership said Wednesday that it has drafted a platform for EU-brokered talks with Kosovo, with a proposal on how to defuse tensions in a volatile Serb enclave.
"With this document we offer our view how to resolve the problem," Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said after his cabinet held a joint session with President Tomislav Nikolic.
Neither Serbia, nor Serbs in their northern Kosovo enclave, recognize Pristina's authority. With its mostly Albanian population, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
Belgrade keeps its hand in the north by running a system of parallel authorities, a move that has fueled tensions and lead to violence in the enclave whenever the Kosovo government attempted to
assert its rule.
The European Union has told Serbia that it must dismantle parallel institutions in the north if it wants to open membership talks.
Belgrade has refused so far refused that demand - and now appears set to offer a new formula.
"Now we need institutions (in the north) acknowledged by both Belgrade and Pristina," Dacic said after the meeting, without revealing details of the proposal.
Local media speculated that Serbia's resolution, due for debate in parliament, will say that progress in the normalization of relations with Kosovo must be followed by progress toward EU membership.
Dacic is scheduled to meet the Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in Brussels on January 17. They have met three times under the auspices of EU top diplomat Catherine Ashton since October.
Local media quoted Ashton's office as saying that north Kosovo will be on the agenda of the next round.
Dacic said that Serbia is interested in normalizing the life disrupted by the row over Kosovo, but reiterated that Belgrade will never recognize it as a sovereign state.