As the October 8 2008 date for a United Nations debate on a Serbian proposal to refer Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence approaches, there have been statements from Podgorica and Skopje that have been interpreted as hints that Montenegro and Macedonia, respectively, are poised to recognise the former Serbian province as independent.

On October 3, Montenegro’s foreign minister Milan Rocen, speaking in parliament during a debate on a resolution to speed up the country’s European integration, said that Kosovo’s independence was a “political reality” that Montenegro could not ignore.

In Montenegro, there is domestic political dissension about whether the country’s European Union prospects are conditional in part on recognising Kosovo, as a number of leading EU countries do.

The day before the debate in the Montenegrin parliament, British foreign secretary David Miliband said that he was hopeful that Montenegro would recognise Kosovo. Miliband said that Kosovo recognition was the key to strengthening regional stability. He said that a total of 50 countries, including 21 EU member states, had recognised Kosovo so far.

Rocen told parliament: “Montenegro cannot afford to stay out of the mainstream developments”.

“An independent Kosovo is a political reality ... and Montenegro has no right to close its eyes before that fact.”

Rocen said that it was up to individual countries to decide whether to recognise Kosovo.

Recognition of Kosovo by Montenegro would be certain to anger Belgrade. The countries were joined in a short-lived “state union” after the breakup of Yugoslavia. After a referendum prompted Montenegro to secede, bilateral relations generally have been without rancour, although some issues – including the question of dual citizenship – have yet to resolved.

Serbia has been campaigning since Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008 for other countries to decline to recognise the breakaway province. Its attempt to approach the International Court of Justice for a ruling is the latest episode in this campaign, although observers have pointed out that even if Belgrade succeeds in getting UN support for such a court application, getting a ruling from the court could take years.

Montenegrin opposition leader, New Movement for Change president Nebojsa Medojevic said that his party had boycotted the parliamentary debate and vote on the resolution because the resolution was divisive, and said that recognition of Kosovo would be at the price of a deterioration in relations with Serbia, a violation of EU principles of good neighbourliness.

The Associated Press reported that Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu urged Montenegro and Macedonia to recognise Kosovo's independence quickly.

“It is a good answer from countries that are now sovereign and with which we were in a state union that is now destroyed and does not exist,” Sejdiu said, in a reference to the former Yugoslavia.

On October 3, daily newspapers in Kosovo made much of a statement by Macedonian president Branko Crvenkovski that Macedonia could recognise Kosovo’s independence “very soon”, becoming thus the second neighboring country (after Albania) and the third country that emerged from former Yugoslavia (after Slovenia and Croatia) to recognise Kosovo.

“In my opinion, the time for opinions and analysis on Kosovo’s declared independence has passed, and the time for decisions has come. We have built our position. I expect our government to make this decision public very soon,” Kosovo daily Koha Ditore quoted Crvenkovski as saying after a meeting with European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.