European Union foreign ministers vowed yesterday to find ways to boost Serbia's pro-European camp ahead of a May election in their first encounter with a Serbian leader since Kosovo's secession. Even the Netherlands, which has vowed to block the signature of a pact on closer EU-Serbia ties until Belgrade hands over wartime general Ratko Mladic to a UN tribunal, said it would be "creative" in helping Serbia move closer to the EU.

"It is very much in our interest to support the pro-European forces with all the means open to us," Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after a meeting in the Slovenian town of Brdo with Serb Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic.

"There is not much time left - a month and a half," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said of the run-up to a May 11 parliamentary election that will pit hardline Serb nationalists against the pro-EU forces of Jeremic and President Boris Tadic. Kouchner urged the EU to make a gesture of "affection and solidarity" towards Serbia, without explicitly calling for the signing of a stabilisation and association (SAA) accord blocked over doubts about Belgrade's co-operation on war criminals.

Jeremic said Serbia had experienced 'painful weeks' since the February 17 loss of overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian Kosovo in a Western-backed secession, warning that many Serbs blame the EU for a move which Belgrade has declared illegal.

"I believe that the critical battle for the European soul of the Western Balkans is upon us. And it will be fought at the polling stations across Serbia," he told EU ministers.

"I want to take this opportunity to appeal to you candidly - this is time for Serbia to sign the SAA," he said, insisting Serbia saw delivering genocide indictee Mladic and other fugitives as a moral obligation.