As EU leaders prepare to welcome the new Yugoslav president, Mr Vojislav Kostunica, at their summit the European Commission has announced details of a €200 million emergency aid package for Belgrade.
The Commissioner for External Relations, Mr Chris Patten, said that the aid was designed to ease the hardship of winter for Serbia's citizens and would focus on energy requirements, school repairs and support for the health service.
The aid package, which must be approved by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, will be paid for by diverting resources from the EU's emergency aid reserve.
Mr Patten insisted that EU aid programmes to other Balkan states would not be cut because of the changed circumstances in Belgrade but said it was important that help should reach the Serbian people quickly.
"What we are talking about here is urgent winter help for the next few weeks or months," he said.
The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, rejected calls for assistance to Belgrade to be linked to political conditions such as the new government's co-operation with the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
"Swift help is good help and conditional help is not swift. The process of democratisation has started in Serbia but it has not been completed.
"The people there must be shown that adopting democracy will change their material circumstances for the better," he said.
Among the biggest problems the new Yugoslav government faces is the fact that Belgrade owes billions of dollars in arrears on loans from international financial institutions. Until this arrears bill is restructured or written off, Belgrade can receive no fresh loans.
Mr Patten said he would meet the financial institutions during the next few weeks to discuss possible solutions to Yugoslavia's debt problem.
Mr Kostunica will join the EU leaders for lunch in Biarritz today at the end of a summit that has been overshadowed by the unfolding drama in the Middle East.
But the Yugoslav leader made clear yesterday that he had no intention of adopting an exclusively pro-Western stance and wanted to keep strong ties to Russia.
"I want to deny rumours that are circulating from various sides today that I, having come to power after Slobodan Milosevic, would completely turn my face toward the West and adopt a pro-American policy, as was done in certain neighbouring states," he told the Russian news agency, Interfax.
He said the desire of Yugoslavia's new leaders to integrate with Europe did not imply distancing from Russia and that he wanted to maintain the "necessary balance in Europe."
