The ministers' meeting in Brussels came just hours after Hashim Thaci, a former Kosovar guerilla leader, reiterated calls for a split from Belgrade after winning Saturday's elections in the Serbian breakaway province.

All but a handful of the EU's 27 member states are ready to recognize supervised independence for Kosovo, a predominantly ethnic-Albanian province of around 2 million people.

Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia have all expressed reservations over the move, fearing that an independent Kosovo could inspire other minorities in their own territories to do the same.

And with a United Nations December 10 deadline for concluding diplomatic efforts looming, efforts to find a united EU front are rapidly running out of time.

Kosovo threatens EU common foreign policy aim

Lack of unity over Kosovo would deal a serious blow to the EU's ambitions of forging a common foreign policy on the most pressing issues facing the bloc.

"A substantial majority (of EU countries) want to recognize (an independent) Kosovo ... certainly well above 20, but we haven't got to 27 yet," said Britain's Minister of State for Europe, Jim Murphy.

But Murphy then stressed that individual EU states, not the EU as a whole, were ultimately responsible for recognizing an independent Kosovo. "And (ministers) have made it clear that they will make their own assessment," he added.

Kosovo independence is strongly opposed by Serbia, which enjoys the support of Russia in the UN Security Council.

A troika of EU, US and Russian mediators, led by German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, has been given until December 10 to find an agreement between the two sides.

Troika leader admits agreement unlikely

But Ischinger, speaking a day before another round of troika talks was due to be held in Brussels, admitted his efforts were unlikely to succeed. "We have explored almost every humanly known option for squaring the circle of the Kosovo status issue," Ischinger said.

"The troika process, even if it were terminated today, has not been window dressing. It was a genuine and intense negotiating process," he added.

In an interview published Monday by Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) leader Thaci said that while he would respect the December 10 deadline, he did not expect "a compromise between Kosovo and Serbia."

Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999, when NATO bombing raids drove Serbian troops out of the province. NATO has since been leading a peacekeeping operation in the area, and its KFOR mission currently totals about 16,000 troops.

EU presidency to pursue all avenues

Speaking at the end of Monday's meeting in Brussels, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said ministers would continue to pursue "all the possibilities to have a common position."

But German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, while insisting that "a negotiated and agreed solution" to Kosovo's status would also be good for Russia, admitted that his country was already getting prepared for "possible alternatives."

And Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said it was time EU ministers began giving serious thought to "the possibility that there will be no agreement" come December 10.