The US and Germany were said to have agreed to recognise Kosov and get the rest of Europe to do so after the province would have declared independence following Serbian elections in February.

The International Herald Tribune (IHT) quoted senior European Union diplomats close to the negotiations over the future of Kosovo as saying that US president George Bush and German chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed that stability on the western Balkans should be secured by coordinating that recognition of Kosovo after the second round of Serbian elections on February 3.

The IHT said Washington was pressing the EU to make sure that recognition of Kosovo would not be delayed by even a week.

"The cake has been baked because the Americans have promised Kosovo independence," IHT quoted a senior EU official as saying. "And if Washington recognizes Kosovo and European nations do not follow, it will be a disaster."

Several EU countries, including Spain, Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus, were reluctant to recognise an independent Kosovo. But according to EU diplomats, a majority of EU member states, including Germany, France, UK and Italy, planned to recognise Kosovo, regardless of other dissenters, IHT said.

Bulgaria’s position on Kosovo's independence has been that "after the end of direct negotiations, the EU has to assume a leading role in a new international political process, which is to minimise risks to international security,” a Foreign Ministry media statement after an EU summit in December 2007.
At the time, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin qualified Kosovo’s unilateral proclamation of independence as a bad twist in developments, saying that all parties should hold onto their commitment to refrain from violence.