Balkan breakthrough confirms Europe's political clout A mission that was widely considered impossible has been pulled off, writes Misha Glenny Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, pulled off an astonishing diplomatic coup on Friday last week in persuading the prime ministers of Serbia and Kosovo to initial an agreement that will break the 13-year constitutional logjam in the western Balkans. Since the Kosovo war between Nato and Serbia in 1999, the west has been promoting Kosovo as an independent state while successive governments in Belgrade, backed by Moscow and Beijing, have insisted it remains a province of Serbia. Of its population, 90 per cent is Albanian while about 8 per cent is Serbian. Recently, some EU countries have issued veiled threats to Serbia that, unless it recognises Kosovo's independence, its path to EU membership will be blocked. Amid this intransigence, few believed Baroness Ashton would be able to pull off a deal. Since the Kosovo conundrum was widely regarded as the most intractable of several serious constitutional problems facing this patchwork of countries and territories as they seek to join the EU, most foreign ministries were happy to leave the problem in her hands on the assumption that she had no chance. The agreement she has overseen in effect gives the Serb minority wide-ranging political and judicial autonomy. It does not require Serbia to recognise Kosovo as an independent state - although, as Serbian opponents of the deal and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci have pointed out, it does concede to Kosovo effective territorial control over the area known as northern Mitrovica. This is the region abutting Serbia proper where just over half of Kosovo's estimated 90,000 Serbs live. In exchange, Serbia is likely to receive a date from the EU for the opening of membership negotiations. Kosovo, too, will be able to deepen its relationship with the EU, although it has further to go than Serbia to meet the standards required for membership. There are potholes in the road to a functioning deal, and there will be challenges to implementation. But it is a measure of Baroness Ashton's ability that Belgrade and Pristina have both indicated that they want her help in overseeing the process. One reason she was able to coax them to make a deal (she insists that the parties are responsible for the overall content) is it was thought so impossible no other party wanted a role in negotiations. This proves that when the EU speaks with a single voice, it can use its leverage to overcome the claim that it is an economic giant but a political pygmy. Baroness Ashton was operating free from interference from foreign ministries and prime ministerial offices in the EU. Thanks to her close relationship with Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state, she also managed to persuade the Americans not to wade in feet first on Pristina's behalf. Washington's diplomatic protection of Kosovar interests has made life difficult for Europeans trying to find a solution to issues in their own backyard. Mr Thaci and Ivica Dacic, his Serbian counterpart, have shown statesmanship and courage in pushing the deal through despite hostility from nationalist groups at home. But the crucial figure Baroness Ashton managed to bring on board was Aleksandar Vucic, president of the Serbian Progressive party, the largest in Serbia's coalition government. Until 2008 he was a leading figure in the Serbian Radical party, run by Serb nationalist Vojislav Seselj, now on trial at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Without Mr Vucic's assent, negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo would have failed. By appearing to solve the hardest problem first, the EU has upped the pressure on other countries in the region, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. If their local politicians continue to stall on dealing with their constitutional issues, they will slip down the pecking order of the EU accession process, which is probably the issue their electorates are watching most closely of all. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist - the event that triggered the first world war and cemented the Balkans" reputation as the powder keg of Europe. The region remains unstable but it will be a fitting start to the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War if Europe succeeds in showing that its soft power is now strong enough to defuse the powder keg for good. The writer is author of "The Balkans"