Serbia takes step forward in bid to join EU
(LUXEMBOURG) - Serbia cleared a crucial hurdle in its bid to join the European Union on Monday when the bloc agreed to examine Belgrade's candidacy as a reward for its softened stance on Kosovo.
But the deal demanded stepped-up cooperation from Belgrade with the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and renewed efforts to bring in notorious Balkans war criminals such as Ratko Mladic.
"It's the start of the process" to joining the 27-nation bloc, said Belgian Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere after counterparts rubber-stamped a deal worked out after weeks of wrangling.
Vanackere, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, cautioned however that full accession remained a way off, with Belgrade under continued scrutiny to polish its profile.
"It must be clear that much remains to be done," he added. "New steps will be based on a logic of conditionality on full cooperation with the ICTY."
"This does not diminish the full and clear signal given today to Serbia," he said.
Serbia welcomed the EU foreign ministers' move as the start of a "new era" in its progress towards eventual EU membership, according to the Beta news agency quoting Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic.
The deal calls on the European Commission to offer its opinion on Belgrade's bid to join the bloc -- a first step in it gaining formal status as an EU candidate. The opinion is expected in the second half of 2011.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele said "the commission will engage immediately in the preparation of its opinion," with detailed questions going to Belgrade within weeks.
The five-paragraph foreign ministers' deal states that Serbia's assistance in arresting and bringing to trial Mladic and Goran Hadzic, both wanted by the ICTY, "would be the most convincing proof" of its future cooperation with the court.
It also stresses that further steps to Serbia's accession will be taken when EU leaders unanimously decide "that full cooperation with the ICTY exists or continues to exist."
For its part Belgrade pledged to do its utmost to find and arrest key fugitive Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military chief, who has been on the run since the war ended in 1995.
"We will do everything, regardless of conditions imposed by the EU, to find (Ratko) Mladic and make him answer for everything he had been charged of," Djelic said, according to Beta.
The Dutch government, host to the ICTY, had insisted any EU accord on Serbian membership add pressure on Belgrade to round up Balkans fugitives still on the run.
"This is a tough but balanced text," said new Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal. "This is what we wanted. With every step on the road to Europe, Serbia has to prove that it fully cooperates with the tribunal."
The Dutch government clashed with Sweden over the wording of the deal, with Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt opposed to excessively harsh language.
"We need a positive policy for the Balkans, otherwise the entire Balkans policy is facing a fairly profound crisis," Bildt told AFP.
Serbia applied for EU membership last December but won support for its bid after agreeing last month to start a dialogue with its breakaway province of Kosovo.
Monday's deal, said Vanackere, "came after effective progress in regional policy and a commitment from the Belgrade government to engage in dialogue with Pristina."
Belgrade, unlike most EU countries and the United States, does not recognise Kosovo's 2008 unilateral declaration of independence, but in September agreed to an EU-brokered dialogue with Pristina that has yet to begin.
The ministers also called for progress in that dialogue.
Mladic, now 68, is facing genocide charges at the ICTY for his role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Hadzic was the Serbian political leader in Croatia during the Serbo-Croatian conflict from 1991 to 1995.