BELGRADE - Paris has made a historic mistake by recognizing Kosovo's independence, Aymeric Chauprade, European parliamentarian from France, has said, stressing that the 1999 NATO war against Serbia assisted the separatist tendencies of the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and the European Union (EU) followed the policy pursued by the United States.

Kosovo can never join the EU because it is a hotbed of crime and is responsible for ethnic cleansing of Serbs and other non-Albanians, Chauprade said in an interview for Belgrade-based daily Vecernje Novosti.

Unfortunately, everything seems to be a continuation of what was taking place in 1999, at the time of the illegal NATO war against Serbia, whose aim was to support the separatism of the Albanians in Kosovo, who have become a majority in this territory by way of demographic changes. And the EU has only followed the policy pursued by the Americans, said the official of the National Front, who has publicly spoke about the suffering of Serbs in Kosovo during a recent meeting of the European Parliament’s (EP) Committee on Foreign Affairs.

According to Chauprade, the United States profits the most from all this, because Serbia, an Orthodox country historically close to Russia, is a regional power.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia was aimed at weakening the Serbian people to make other nations stronger. The campaign for the rights of minorities was just a screen for the strategic interests of the United States, and also of Germany, said Chauprade.

He said that there were a lot of models that could be used to resolve the Kosovo status issue, such as, for example, the proposed strong autonomy for the Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty.

In any event, said the MEP, Kosovo should remain a Serbian province.

The logic of independence leads to a dead end – all the more so because the Albanians in Kosovo have a mafia economy sustained largely by smuggling, which I was able to see for myself during a visit I paid to Kosovo a few years ago. And this is very dangerous for both the local population and the EU, if it wants to have this region integrated, concluded Chauprade.