Long illness is sure death. This is the pace negotiations on establishing a statute for the Kosovo province are going on. The United States, Germany and Great Britain make pressures for an independent Kosovo moving Serbia to anger and Russia to irritation. Romania is caught in the middle of this game - in its quality of a US ally and of an EU member as well - and has to follow its own interests. Bulgaria, Slovakia, Cyprus and Greece run the risk of appearing as playing the Moscow's card in the Kosovo issue. Just like Romania, all these countries try in fact to avoid the creation of a potentially explosive precedent. An independent Kosovo creates a dangerous precedent for the whole Europe. The Basks and the Catalonians in Spain, the Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia - and even the Turk minority in Bulgaria - may vindicate their rights by taking this as a model. Putin announced Russia's position long ago: the Kosovo model would be applied in the frozen conflicts in the ex-Soviet Union. This would mean the independence of Transdniestria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Kosovo matter has two edges for Russia: the legitimizing of the military presence at the Black Sea (Transdniestria) is put in balance with the legitimizing of the Tchechnya separatists. It is not clear for now the card China is going to play. There may be potentially separatist tendencies in the huge Asian empire. Given the circumstances, it's most likely that Beijing's vote in the Security Council is in agreement with Russia, i.e. against an independent Kosovo. The idea promoted by the supporters of the independence who state that the ex-Serb province is an exceptional case deserving an exceptional treatment is not of a nature to persuade too many people. In addition to this, the Kosovo matter managed to divide the European Union: the vote in the European Parliament concerning the future of this province had a powerful opposition: 268 deputies against and 319 for. The yesterday British press indicates a great likelihood that a new war starts in Kosovo. The Guardian presents the following scenario: if Russia blocks the UNO resolution and the European Union continues to be divided on whether to back or not the independence of the province, then the Albanian ethnic might declare unilaterally their separation from Serbia and they are likely to be recognized as a State by USA, UK, France and other Western countries, deepening, by this, the international crisis. In this case, Serbia might annex northern Kosovo, mostly inhabited by Serbs, a fact that might bring clashes and inevitable ethnic cleansing. The Serbs of Kosovo have already been digging out their dead ones and carry them to Serbia. While this whole situation presents a maximum explosive potential, Romania has no minister of Foreign Affairs to the meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs ministers. The chiefs of diplomacy of the EU member states met yesterday in Bremen, and Romania was represented by the state secretary Adrian Vierita. We leave aside the fact that ca it is most likely that the EU ministers of Foreign Affairs refuse the dialogue with a state secretary. Though, the dialogue he might have had with an equal in rank and a presentation for export of the conflict between Cotroceni and Victoria Palaces would represent quite a bankruptcy for Romania. When it comes about Kosovo, the European community pricks its ears and crosses its fingers for fear of a new war. If Tariceanu tries to take from Basescu the latter's toy of foreign policy just like that for the sake of scoring an electoral point, we may say that Romania is in deep crisis, unable to take a coherent position at the international level.

George DAMIAN