BELGIUM / SERBIA: European Union Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn meets Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Ivana Dulic-Markovic on war crimes and EU membership issue

In May this year, the EU froze pre-membership talks because Serbia failed to arrest war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic as requested by the International Crimes Tribunal for Former Yugolsavia (ICTY). Serbia Deputy Prime Minister Ivana Dulic-Markovic went to Brussels on Thursday (August 17) with a plan showing Serbia wants to try again, but needs Brussel's help. Serbia wants almost half its $2.3 billion debt to the Paris Club to be written off, so the country could invest the sum in its infrastructure. Belgrade will also ask Brussels to relax the visa regime for Serb citizens and for scholarships and economic support. "This plan (to be presented to the European Union) is partly about economic support, about our proposal that EU countries support a write-off of part of Serbia's to the Paris Club....We also want to talk about easing of the visa regime, scholarships and educational cooperation,'' Dulic-Markovic explained. The minister, an ethnic Croat and the only woman in Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's cabinet, went to Brussels saying its citizens need encouragement and support, not punishment in order to stay away from nationalism and keep their focus on eventual EU membership. It looks like she will go back to Belgrade empty-handed. At the end of her meeting the European Union Enlargement Commissioner Ollie Rehn, Dulic Markovic said any progress on joining the European Union depended on it catching war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic. "The concrete conclusion is that everything is up to Serbia and that if we manage to fulfill our obligation, full cooperation with ICTY, the European Commission and the European Union will try to support our further steps into integration," Ivana Dulic-Markovic said. Dulic-Markovic indicated that the state was working to arrest the former general, twice indicted for genocide over his role in the 1992-95 Bosnia war -- but for many Serbs still a national hero. He is thought to be being sheltered by elements of military intelligence. In July, the EU welcomed a Serbian "roadmap" to catch Mladic but said it needed to be fleshed out and implemented to allow the restart of talks on eventual EU membership. For Dulic-Markovic, talks with the European Union must continue, not only to keep Serbian citizens interested in Europe but also to maintain Europe's interest in Serbia. Serbia, already impoverished by Yugoslav war-related sanctions in the 1990s and battered by NATO bombs in 1999 for killing civilians while fighting a rebellion in Kosovo province, has had a difficult year. After the EU froze talks, Serbia's partner Montenegro voted to leave their joint state to try its luck on the EU path alone. The two had been partners for nearly 90 years and their divorce hardened Serb nationalist sentiments. If the West grants Kosovo's Albanian majority independence by year-end, as diplomats expect, Serbian resentment can only grow.

ITN Source | August 18, 2006

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