LONDON — The Serbian presidential election last Sunday was a near-run thing, but in the end the good guy won. Not that President Boris Tadic is all that wonderful, but he positively glows with virtue in contrast to his opponent Tomislav Nikolic, an ultra-nationalist who served as a government minister under strongman Slobodan Milosevic and has been accused of war crimes during the Serbian occupation of eastern Croatia in the 1990s. Tadic ended up with 50.5 percent of the votes to Nikolic's 47.7 percent.
This means that the elaborately choreographed diplomatic dance to give Kosovo its independence can go ahead without unleashing a Balkan war, for Tadic, while he opposes Kosovo's independence as much as any other Serb, has promised not to use force to stop it.
The European Union took the first step in the dance the day after the Serbian election, announcing that an EU "peace and justice mission" made up of 1,800 European police and legal officials will take the place of the existing United Nations mission in Kosovo.