The European Union rule of law mission (EULEX) will start its deployment in Kosovo next week, EULEX spokesman Victor Reuter said in Kosovo yesterday.

"December 9 is the date when EULEX police will come to Kosovo and join their colleagues from the Kosovo police in offices in Kosovo, the day that prosecutors will assume their duties in courts throughout Kosovo," Reuter told a press conference in the Kosovo Serb enclave of Caglavica, the Serbian official Tanjug news agency reported.

Reuter said that by the end of winter EULEX would be operating throughout Kosovo in line with the mandate of the UN Security Council.

EULEX has come to build rule of law structures in line with European standards and will start work in close cooperation with the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), he said.

The EU mission, which includes police officers, prosecutors, judges and customs officials, will have 1,300 members and 1,100 local employees and is eventually expected to have 1,900 members from European Union countries, plus around 80 US members.

The EULEX is designed to replace the UNMIK with some executive powers in judiciary, custom and police although the UNMIK will remain in Kosovo to deal with issues concerning ethnic Serbs.

Having been run by the UNMIK by nearly nine years, ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in February despite strong opposition from Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Serbs.

UNMIK spokesman Alexander Ivanko said that UNMIK will shortly start transferring powers to EULEX.