Da Belgrad es bisher nicht gelungen ist, den flüchtigen General Ratko Mladic festzunehmen, hat die EU die Gespräche über ein Stabilitäts- und Assoziierungsabkommen vorerst abgebrochen. Hierüber schreibt Aleksandar Mitic in Transitions Online.
The European Commission’s decision on 3 May to call off stabilization and association talks with Serbia and Montenegro after Belgrade’s failure to arrest war crimes indictee Ratko Mladic has brought a new sense of urgency to the Serbian authorities that more must be done in order to close the “Mladic file” and avoid new strains on relations with Brussels.
One of the first consequences of what Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called “huge damage” to Serbia’s interests has been the resignation of his deputy, Miroljub Labus, the man who had been in charge of the talks since they officially opened in November.
But the Serbian police also responded by arresting three members of Mladic’s support network on 4 May and saying that new arrests of some of his closest associates were imminent.
The decision, announced by enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, was made two months after the EU Council of Ministers first warned that the talks on the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) could be “disrupted” if Belgrade failed to arrest Mladic soon.
The SAA is a contractual first step on the long road to EU membership.
‘Still within reach’
A first formal deadline, set for early April, was postponed after Kostunica reportedly gave assurances to Rehn and the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, that the hunt for Mladic was drawing to a close.
However, a month later, despite the arrest of a dozen members of Mladic’s support network by Serbian intelligence, Mladic himself still had not been arrested, prompting Rehn’s decision.
The commissioner said he was disappointed but that he did not have any other option than to postpone the upcoming round of the talks, scheduled for 11 May.
When asked by reporters about rumors of Mladic’s arrest that very morning, Rehn said, “The time for speculation is over. It is time for delivery. We are now not focusing on commitments but on concrete delivery. … It is high time for Serbia to intensify efforts to arrest Ratko Mladic.”
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