A team of French officers moved into Kosovo’s northernmost border post with Serbia on Tuesday as the European Union took over policing the tiny new country from the United Nations.

The EU mission _ delayed for months by protests on both sides of Kosovo’s ethnic divide _ will still be relying on NATO’s 16,000 peacekeepers for protection.

Kosovo’s Serb minority has rejected the EU deployment, after most EU member states supported Kosovo’s February declaration of independence from Serbia.

Ethnic Albanians also have objections to the mission. They fear that the EU made too many concessions in an effort to win Serb leaders’ support _ such as agreeing to work under the auspices of the U.N., which did not back Kosovo’s independence. The ethnic Albanians fear these concessions could lead to Serbia having a say over Kosovo’s affairs in areas where Serbs live _ eventually splitting the country along ethnic lines.

The EU force, known as EULEX, took control across Kosovo without incident, mission chief Yves De Kermabon said in the capital, Pristina. When fully deployed, the EU mission will have than 2,000 police and justice workers monitoring and advising local authorities on tackling corruption and organized crime.

“I can say that this morning there were absolutely no incidents,” De Kermabon told reporters at a news conference along with President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. “Everything went very well, very softly.”

EU police moved first to replace U.N. staff in Kosovo’s more volatile north, where NATO peacekeepers had heightened security, before moving into the rest of the small, landlocked Balkan country.

Witnesses said EU justice workers arrived at 7 a.m. Tuesday at the courthouse in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica _ scene of deadly clashes in March between Serb mobs and international forces.

About 30 French police officers pulled up to the northern Donje Jarinje border post as eight U.N. cars and armored vehicles drove away, with some U.N. staff waving at friends and colleagues they left behind.

The United Nations, which has run Kosovo since 1999, had planned to leave when the EU mission arrived but will stay on in a reduced capacity to act as a buffer between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian authorities and minority Serbs.

De Kermabon said the mission could take longer to deploy in Serb areas, but brushed away fears it would take sides in the dispute.

“We have once again to explain and to convince everybody that EULEX is a win-win situation,” De Kermabon said in a weekend interview.

The EU mission was approved for deployment after Kosovo’s February independence declaration to promote peace, justice and the rule of law, but the deployment was stalled in part because of objections from Serbia, which insists that Kosovo remains part of its territory. Serbia and Kosovo reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the mission last month.