SERBIA has now made a formal application to join the European Union. It was hardly unexpected. EU officials have been working with Belgrade on the reform package necessary to align the Serbian economy with that of the 27 existing member states. But such conformity is hardly the real issue. Brussels must insist that Serbia has much else to do before accession becomes a reality.
The first condition apparently being demanded is that the authorities in Belgrade apprehend and hand over, to the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, the two remaining top suspects accused of appalling acts in Bosnia, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic. It is simply not enough for a EU official to say that there is “cautious optimism” that these two individuals will be apprehended. These men simply have to be captured and brought to trial. It is clear they are being sheltered by sympathizers. Mladic, the man who organized the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, is widely believed to have been helped to remain on the run by elements in the Serbian military. Hadzic, accused of instigating the 1991 massacre of some 250 Croat and other non-Serb patients from a Vukovar hospital is also thought to have had powerful protectors.
It is simply not good enough that the Serbian government has failed to apprehend these men. The fact that they finally found and handed over for trial Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic does not release them from this equally important obligation.
Then there is Kosovo. While the EU itself has not recognized the independence of the former Yugoslavian province since its breakaway from Serbia in February 2008, 22 of the 27 member states have. Serbia remains adamant that the unanimous decision of the Kosovar legislature is illegal. It has vowed to see the territory returned to its control, though officially it has ruled out the use of force to achieve this. It is simply unthinkable that Brussels will approve the accession of a state that refuses to recognize the sovereignty of a neighboring country. The Serbians have to abandon their rejection of Kosovo’s existence. Unfortunately, the issue seems to be so visceral, it is being exploited by unprepossessing nationalist politicians. It will thus be hard for political moderates to plead Serbia has more important considerations than the return of a piece of territory, whose significance rests very largely on a historic Serbian defeat by the Ottoman armies.
Finally the EU has itself to answer the important question — why is Serbia being considered for accession in maybe four or five years’ time, when Turkey has been seeking membership now for over quarter of a century? The reality is that neither France nor Germany wants a Muslim state in the EU. When it comes to meeting EU standards, Turkey remains its own worst enemy — the ill-judged banning of a Kurdish political party being only the latest error. But Serbia offers no less in the way of challenges to Brussels. It should, therefore, be given no more latitude in qualifying for EU membership than Turkey.
