Today, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stated before the European Parliament that she is appalled by the scenes from the funeral of the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić in Belgrade earlier this month, but did not announce any punitive measures against Serbia.
The head of the European Commission is resisting calls for the European Union (EU) to impose consequences on Serbia, which is still a candidate country for EU membership, along with other Western Balkan states.
“There is no place for glorification of the war criminals in the European Union,” Von der Leyen said during her annual State of the Union speech. However, she held back from directly criticizing Serbia despite calls for the EU to take a firmer stance.
Mladić, known as “the Butcher of Bosnia”, died in August as he was serving a life sentence in The Hague for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The body was transported by a state plane to Belgrade, where it was awaited by an honor guard of the Serbian Armed Forces and members of various security services. Commemorations were held, covered by the public broadcaster and the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the coffin was draped with the flag of Serbia.
Authorities in Belgrade previously denied that Mladić would be buried with state honors.
The scenes from the funeral sparked outrage across Europe, and the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković criticized, as he said, a lukewarm reaction from the European Union.
European Commission, under the Von der Leyen leadership, previously tried to accelerate Serbia’s path towards EU membership by opening Cluster 3, which relates to competitiveness and inclusive growth.
However, the EU Member States blocked that step due to long-standing concerns over the state of democracy in Serbia, even after the Venice Commission assessed that Belgrade implemented most of its recommendations on judicial reform.
Diplomats told Euronews that Ratko Mladić’s funeral practically halted Serbia’s efforts to advance in accession negotiations. One diplomat said that “anyone considering opening Cluster 3 will think twice.”
Henrik Dahl, a Danish MEP from the European People’s Party (EPP), said that “Serbia has put itself at the back of the queue for entering the European Union by giving a war criminal a state funeral.”
Several Members of the European Parliament also questioned the membership of the Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party in the European People’s Party, the center-right political group to which Ursula von der Leyen also belongs.
European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos postponed the planned visit to Belgrade as a response to the funeral, which fueled speculation that Von der Leyen could announce similar consequences.
Although it is expected that the President of the European Commission will visit candidate countries in the Western Balkans this autumn, including Serbia, the European Commission has not yet confirmed the final itinerary for the tour.
