EU welcomes Mladić arrest
Move paves way for Serbia to gain EU candidate status later this year.
European Union officials have welcomed today’s arrest of Ratko Mladić, the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serbs, and suggested that Serbia is now on course for EU candidate status.
José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, called the arrest “a very positive development for the European Union, for Serbia’s neighbours, but most of all for the rule of law in Serbia itself”.
“The families of his countless victims deserve justice,” Barroso said.
Mladić was arrested by Serbian intelligence this morning in a village not far from Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, north of the capital Belgrade. Serbia’s war-crimes prosecutor said Mladić would be transferred to the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague early next week. An extradition hearing is to be held later this afternoon in Belgrade.
Mladić faces charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes at the ICTY, most notably the massacre of some 8,000 men at Srebrenica in July 1995 and the siege of Sarajevo, in which 10,000 civilians lost their lives.
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said: “I’ve discussed with President Tadić on a number of occasions his commitment to wanting to see Mr Mladić brought to justice, so it’s important that we see that ambition realised today.” Ashton made her statement after her arrival in Belgrade on a pre-arranged visit.
Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement and the neighbourhood, said: “Justice is being served, and a great obstacle on the Serbian road to the European Union has been removed.”
“They have delivered and thus proved their credibility,” he said about the Serbian leadership. “If the question is whether Serbia is closer to membership today than it was yesterday, then the answer is yes, absolutely.”
Füle paid “personal tribute” to Boris Tadić, president of Serbia, for his determination to catch Mladić.
Carl Bildt, foreign minister of Sweden and a former international envoy in Bosnia, said that Serbia’s European prospects are now “brighter than ever”.
A diplomat from an EU member state said: “Anyone who has argued over the years that insisting on full cooperation with ICTY was a doomed and wretched policy has been proven wrong today. It works and it has the added virtue of being right.”
Valentin Inzko, the EU’s Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, told reporters in Brussels that the arrest was “the beginning of the end” of a painful chapter in Bosnia’s history. “We buried more than 700 victims last year and this year we’ll bury more than 500 in Srebrenica,” he said.
He said that the arrest removed the “last hurdle for Serbia’s candidate status”.
Jelko Kacin, a liberal MEP from Slovenia who follows Serbia on behalf of the European Parliament, said: “It is extremely important that Serbia found and arrested Ratko Mladić all by itself. It took much too long, but it is essential that it happened now. This development heralds a new dynamism in the region and will contribute to more positive political perspectives for the future.”