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The Czech Republics political crisis and the economic slowdown are threatening European Union plans to offer membership to new countries in the Balkans and beyond, ministers said on Saturday. Aspiring EU member Serbia acknowledged its path to the EU faced delay. Last weeks no-confidence vote in the Czech government cast doubt on whether Prague will ratify an EU treaty needed to reform EU decision-making and allow it to expand.

"This path is going to be longer, in all likelihood its going to take us more time," Serb Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said before talks with EU counterparts in the Czech Republic. "But what I really think is important is that we maintain ... the sense of not being left out," he said. Belgrade still intended to apply for membership, he said.

An upbeat joint statement issued after the EU talks with membership hopefuls confirmed their long-term prospect of accession, and stressed that the economic crisis made close co-operation in the region even more necessary. But Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and other ministers said the slowdown was making further enlargement more difficult.

"For candidate countries and other countries of the Western Balkans, this is at the moment a very huge difficulty," Paet said. Asked if failure by Prague to ratify the Lisbon Treaty would jeopardise enlargement plans, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said, "Of course it can. It is in our highest national interest to ratify it as soon as possible."