We want to give the Kosovo talks a new chance and I call on Belgrade and Pristina to be constructive, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana said the talks were expected to last about four months, as envisaged by the UN draft resolution that was not adopted due to Russia's opposition.
The Contact Group for Kosovo, which comprises the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, will meet in Vienna on Wednesday.
If the Group reaches agreement on modalities of talks, they could start as early as next month, it was said in Brussels.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that a troika - the EU, the United States and Russia - should act as mediators in the talks.
The talks are expected to be based on UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan for Kosovo, which envisages internationally supervised independence for the province.
The EU, which has expressed readiness to participate in the implementation of an agreed solution, has no answer as to what will happen if the new round of talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians fails.
Solana said that it would be absurd to speculate about what would happen if the talks failed now that both sides were being urged to continue negotiations.
Belgrade and Pristina had negotiated with Ahtisaari as a mediator, but the 13-month negotiations ended with the statement that the two sides have diametrically opposed views on Kosovo's future status.