Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools
Sections
You are here: Home Breaking news EU's Barroso warns time is running out for Serbia

EU's Barroso warns time is running out for Serbia

19 May 2011, 20:51 CET
— filed under: , ,

(BELGRADE) - European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso warned Serbia Thursday that time is running out and only full cooperation with a war crimes court will secure it EU candidacy status this year.

"During my visit I supported huge efforts made by Serbia and I can say you are on the right track, but time is running out and Serbia holds the key," Barroso said after meeting Serbia's Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic.

"We need results before summer ... and cooperation with ICTY (court) is of critical importance," he added.

Serbia is hoping to be made an official EU candidate nation by the end of this year, but Brussels has said Belgrade's full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is a condition that needs to be met.

The court's most wanted fugitives, wartime Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, are believed to be hiding in Serbia.

During a visit to Serbia last week the ICTY's prosecutor Serge Brammertz warned that Serbia "can do more and must do more" to arrest the fugitives, saying "there can be no alternative" to their arrest.

He submitted his last report on Serbia's cooperation with the court to the UN Security Council this week and Belgrade media say it is negative.

After the talks with Serbian President Boris Tadic, Barroso said that Serbia's "cooperation with the ICTY is an important and indispensable condition" for the country's accession process.

"The two remaining fugitives are escaping justice, this is not an acceptable end. WE expect progress to be achieved so that the opinion of the cooperation with ICTY can be positive," Barroso said.

Tadic said Serbia "is seriously taking the Brammertz report into consideration as a suggestion to which direction we should go to improve the cooperation."

"But let me disagree with a remark that Serbia is not doing everything possible ... to finalise the process of cooperation," Tadic told reporters, adding that he believed Serbia would satisfy conditions to obtain the EU candidacy status.

Belgrade applied for EU membership in late 2009 and hopes to be granted the status of a candidate by December.

The June report will be the last before the European Commission gives its opinion on Serbia's candidacy bid on October 12.

Mladic is indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity over his role in the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia.

Hadzic is wanted by the ICTY for suspected war crimes committed during the 1991-1995 conflict in Croatia.


Document Actions