The vote had been delayed until after Serbia's recent presidential polls so as not to become an issue in election campaigning.
Serbia's pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic was narrowly re-elected as president on Sunday in a vote seen as a key test of the country's relations with Europe. Tadic defeated pro-Russian nationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic. The EU announced after the polls that it was seeking to speed up Belgrade's progress towards EU membership.
"We give support today to our fellow people in Kosovo and show them that we will never let them down. We don't want bad things to come to anyone. We want peace, cooperation with all countries in the region, but we demand Serbia be respected," Tadic told cheering crowds on Monday in Belgrade.
EU foreign ministers are likely to set a date for the launch of the 1,800-strong mission to the Albanian-dominated Serbian province on February 18.
Kosovo announced on Monday that it would declare its independence within weeks.
There is a degree of urgency to the EU plans, with the organization anxious to deploy the force before the province declares its sovereignty. The new mission will replace the UN mission deployed in the region since the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia ended a conflict between Albanian and Serb forces in 1999. A 16,000-strong NATO force is to remain in Kosovo.
Moscow continues to press for a compromise on the issue of Kosovo independence, saying that Pristina will be unable to achieve full international recognition. Both Cyprus and Romania have already stated that they will refuse to recognize Kosovo's independence.
The foreign minister of the EU chair, Slovenia, Dimitrij Rupel, said on Tuesday in Tbilisi that the Kosovo model was unique and could not be regarded as a precedent for internal conflicts between Georgia and its breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
