Like it often happens, I can't agree with Mr. Gabriel Andreescu who argues that to describe the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo as "the most dangerous precedent after WWW II", like Jostunica does, is only on "an excessive mind's lack of horizon". It would mean to forget that, for the first time after the Helsinki agreements, it is about the secession of a part from the territory of a whole European state, admitted as such by the international community. Spain is not in vain hasty to support the independence of Kosovo. It is obvious that the Romanian approach and, moreover, the proclamation of it with no sanction for the international community, can't possibly agree. It is also obvious that the negotiations in Belgrade and Pristina exhausted fruitlessly the negotiation potential of both sides and and the patience of international negotiators. Martti Ahtisaari wtote in March 26, 2000: "Repeatedly and along the entire process, both sides have reiterated their views in categorical opposition: Belgrade demands autonomy for Kosovo within Serbia, whereas Pristina puts up with no less than independence. Even in practical matters like decentralization, community rights, protection for the cultural and religious legacy, or in economy matters, there has been made only very modest progress. I am not hesitating to say that the negotiations' potential to produce a mutually convenient solution is now exhausted." Unfortunately, unlike their history, the facts themselves can no longer be written again. In the early 90s, the international community pretended that the Kosovo issue didn't exist, thus giving an opportunity to the Miloshevik regime to open the aggression and the ethnic purification of the Albanians in Kosovo and we all know the disastrous consequences of it. "A window for opportunity" opened, rather by force, but it did open in 1999 due to the Stability Pact. In its initial version dating back to April 1999 (but not in the one passed in Sarajevo in August), the Pact proposed the immediate start of talks for the EU accession with Serbia (at that time still part of the Serbia-Montenegro federation) and Kosovo too. This opportunity was missed too, but its significance should be, and I agree with Mr Severin in this point, reloaded: to guarantee the independence of the province, but to turn it into fact only when Kosovo and Serbia are ready to join the EU. I don't know if here and now the EU has got the clairvoyance and courage to restart in the Balkans an experience sketched in the case of Cyprus. Romania is facing direct and especially indirect risks, effecting from the trimph of Albanian irredentism and it would be absurd to pretend they don't exist. But I don't think Romania is protecting its interests well, simply by saying that the state doesn't acknowledge the independence of Kosovo. This is what the Russian Federation is doing, but with different success and different motivations. But since summer is not like winter, Romania is not like Russia. Apart from such differences, Russia is neither a member of the NATO or of the EU and, moreover, it is not interested in a solution to settle the tension in the Balkans. On the contrary. As a country at the border of both organizations, it should have imagined a feasible alternative and it should have found allies to support such an alternative.

Zoe PETRE