The Managing Team for forming the Community of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo said in Brussels on Sept. 8 that it was starting on a Community statute and that members of the team had discussed this with representatives of the EU's institutions.

The four member team and its expert groups are starting, team member Dejan Radojkovic said after Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and Premier Isa Mustafa ordered it.

In addition to Radojkovic, the team includes three other Kosovo Serbian representatives Vinka Radosavljevic, Igor Kalamar and Svetislav Durlevic.

Minister of Administration and Local Self-Rule in the Kosovo cabinet Ljubomir Maric told reporters in Brussels that he would coordinate all of the activities between the Managing Team, other Kosovo institutions and the international community.

Maric said that the team finally "has the political support of all important factors and can now deal with the expert part of the job of composing a statute for the Community and carrying out all six points of the Brussels' Agreement" related to the Community and the four areas that are in its jurisdiction.

He stressed that the Managing Team for the Community finally had the political support of Thaci and Mustafa, which was important since this political support did not exist previously.

European diplomatic sources told BETA that the efforts to form and start the work of the Managing Team for the Community had yielded results owing to the endorsement of European Commission and EU officials.

These sources agreed with the description that the visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Pristina "has been very useful" along with his warning that the Kosovo authorities could not expect Washington to support them and progress in European integrations if they did not launch the composition of the Community's statute and solve the question of demarcation with Montenegro.