It seems that February might be D-Month for Kosovo. Most regional politicians have stated the the Kosovo Parliament declare independance during this month (http://en.rian.ru/world/20080204/98356616.html).

Although this is not certain, since there hadn't been any strong voices of support from the US or EU save the usual rhetorics how that could be the only solution that they've been repeating for some time now, there is a strong possibility that Kosovo might declare independence unilateraly, and wait for recognition from individual countries, rather than UN as a whole.

Most EU countries support Kosovo independance, but the "union" is not "united" completely. Some countries, like Romania, Spain and Slovakia have already stated that they are against it, among others. Greece is also not too keen on this scenario, as it deals with Albanian nationalism in it's territory, albeit in a more mild form. EU is about to send a police and justice mission to Kosovo, which is seen as a prelude for independence by the prime minister, Kostunica and his DSS party. Kostunica threatened that Serbia won't sign pre-agreement for membership in the EU if it sends the mission (which is quite a precedent in itself - an eastern European country saying we won't join if you do this, usually it was the other way around ). The problem is that Kostunica is in coallition with Tadic's DS party which is ready to sign the agreement with EU no matter what happens with the mission.

If Kosovo do proclaim its independence after the arrival of EU mission, still there is a question what will be Serbia's response. All three top politicians in Serbia - Kostunica (DSS party), Tadic (DS) and Nikolic (SRS), are against independance, but their positions differ when it comes to response. Tadic likely won't do anything to jeopardize EU membership, so his response would be probably "ok, let's move on"... Kostunica is likely to oppose it stronly by political means, and Nikolic would do likewise. If Kosovo declares independance it could happen that DSS breaks of with DS and instead form a goverment with SRS (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...ews/Serbia.php). Military response is out of the question in any scenario since there is no public support for it, and Serbia's military is in no shape to actively threaten anything.

Political response probably means blocking Kosovo in all international and European institutions Serbia is a member of. That by itself wouldn't mean too much, but Russia has expressed that it, too, would block Kosovo everywhere and that it would reconsider it's position on self-proclaimed independent regions in the future (http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080204/98319651.htmlhtml).

As the title says, things are heating up. What's going to happen and what should happen? Are we looking at another Cyprus? Is this finally formally relegating UN to the status of impotent organization? Will Kosovo be able to exist if it's blocked by several countries in the region? Is this finally show EU double standards since it's position on the ex-yu conflict was supposed to be the same?

An experct from the speech by Lord Owen at the council of Europe in 1992:
The London Conference laid down that the Tito map was sacrosanct unless changed by mutual agreement I have yet to see any sign of change in that map by mutual agreement. Let us take that map as our point of reference in the negotiations. If we do that, we accept that the peoples of different nations will live in different countries — that Serbs will live in Croatia, Serbs and Croats will live in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albanians will live in Serbia and Montenegro, and that Muslims and Hungarians will live in Serbia and Montenegro.