BELGRADE (AP) -- The caretaker government on Monday urged the president to call early parliamentary elections in May after the Cabinet collapsed because of an impasse over how Kosovo's independence affects Serbia's pursuit of EU membership.

The European Union called on political leaders in Belgrade to shun isolationism and keep their country on course to join the bloc, while the Bush administration urged them to focus “on the future.”
Early elections are seen as a test of whether Serbia will continue on a path toward EU membership or revert to the international isolation of the 1990s under the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
On Saturday, Serbia's nationalist prime minister said his government could no longer function alongside the president's pro-Western Democrats because of their insistence on pursuing EU membership, even though 18 of the bloc's 27 member nations have moved to recognize newly independent Kosovo.
“It has been established that the government no longer has united and joint policies” over Kosovo and Serbia's EU integration, the government said in a statement Monday.
“Aiming to establish the functioning of stable state institutions, we propose the dissolution of the parliament and the holding of new elections on May 11, 2008,” it added.
Predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. Kosovo had been under UN control since 1999, when NATO launched an air war to stop Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists there. But mainly Orthodox Christian Serbia, which considers the territory its historic and religious heartland, has rejected Kosovo's move as illegal under international law.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica insists that EU nations must rescind recognition of Kosovo's independence before Serbia resumes pre-membership talks with the bloc.
But President Boris Tadic opposes tying Serbia's EU membership to the Kosovo issue and says Serbia has a better chance of fighting for its territorial rights if it is not isolated.
Tadic has said that he would accept the government's proposal to dissolve Parliament and hold the early elections on May 11. He has until Thursday to make the formal announcement.
The Serbian Cabinet, made up of Kostunica's conservatives and Tadic's Democrats, was formed in May following months of strained negotiations in the wake of the 2007 parliamentary elections.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that the U.S. recognizes “how difficult and emotional an issue Kosovo was,” but that “this is going to be an issue for the Serbians to work out.”
“We would just suggest to them, as they work through a politically turbulent time, that they keep their focus on the future, as opposed to the past,” he said Monday.
Arriving at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Belgium, Javier Solana, the bloc's foreign and security affairs chief, said he hoped Serbs “continue pushing for a relationship, deep and solid, with the European Union.”
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the EU “has been clear it wants to enforce stability in the western Balkans.”
“That means reaching out to the people of Serbia, to be clear there is a European vocation for Serbia in the future,” he said.