Serbia gets foot in EU door after Mladic arrest
Ratko Mladic - Photo Mikhail Evstafiev
(BRUSSELS) - Serbia's capture of indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic after almost 16 years on the run was hailed Thursday as a new chapter for Europe and a giant step in Belgrade's bid to join the EU family.
As Europe's powers lined up to welcome the detention as a move towards closure of the murderous Balkans conflict, the European Union endorsed the arrest of the Bosnian Serb war chief as a boost in Belgrade's campaign for entry into the 27-state club.
"It will be of great benefit for Serbia, but also for the European Union, to eventually see Serbia as part of the EU," said the bloc's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton at a joint press conference with President Boris Tadic.
"The events of today will give renewed energy to the process," she added.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said trying the general accused of masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre would help turn a dark page of European history.
"This is at once the best basis for the region achieving reconciliation and a future in Europe," said Merkel. Hague lauded an "historic moment" to "mark the beginning of a new chapter" for the western Balkans.
And as UN war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Serge Brammertz, gave his judicial thumbs up, saying Belgrade "has fulfilled one of its international obligations", European leaders moved to embrace the nation into the EU.
The arrest was "another step towards Serbia joining, one day soon, the European Union," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
It "gives new impetus to Serbia's EU accession process", said European parliament president Jerzy Buzek, offering "convincing proof" of Serbia's "efforts and cooperation" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Mladic had been the ICTY's most wanted fugitive, and Belgrade had been warned repeatedly by the EU that membership would hinge on "full cooperation" with the tribunal.
Serbia applied for EU membership back in late 2009 and last December cleared a crucial hurdle when the union agreed to examine its candidacy as a reward for softening its stand on Kosovo.
But the December victory came coupled with a warning there would be no further progress failing assistance from Belgrade in arresting and bringing to trial Mladic and Croatian Serb wartime leader Goran Hadzic, wanted by the ICTY respectively for their roles in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and the Serbia-Croatia conflict of 1991-1995.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, an architect of the Dayton Peace accords that ended the Bosnian war, praised Tadic for ensuring Mladic's arrest.
"I never doubted his determination and know how hard he worked on this."
The EU's enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele said the arrest lifted a major roadblock on Serbia's candidacy.
"Justice has been served and a great obstacle on the Serbian road to the European Union has been removed," he said.
"Tomorrow, in this new momentum created, work must intensify on reforms" enabling the EU to formally admit Serbia as a candidate country -- a decision expected in the second half of 2011.
Serbia won support for its bid to join the EU after agreeing last September to start a dialogue with its breakaway province of Kosovo.
Unlike most EU countries and the United States, Belgrade does not recognise Kosovo's 2008 unilateral declaration of independence. But in March this year it held its first tete-a-tete since then by joining EU-brokered talks to resolve nuts-and-bolts issues causing everyday headaches for people on both sides of the divide.
The prime minister of Serbia's neighbour Croatia, Jadranka Kosor said, "The arrest of Ratko Mladic is good news for all of us, for the whole world ... It is good news in the context of reaching eventual justice, stability and final peace in this part of the world."
"We expect also the arrest of Goran Hadzic," she stressed, referring to the last remaining fugitive wanted by the ICTY.
Hadzic, the former president of the self-proclaimed Serb republic of Krajina in Croatia, is accused of the murder of hundreds of Croat civilians and the deportation of tens of thousands of Croats and other non-Serbs by Serb troops in Croatia.
However Russia's ambassador to NATO called for NATO generals to be tried alongside Mladic.
"But Serbia will not feel his guilt until ... it sees that members of the international community who shot at peaceful civilians are punished," often outspoken ambassador Dmitry Rogozin told Moscow Echo radio.
"We should be talking about the responsibility of NATO generals," he added.