The Serbs’ other door to Europe

Talks between the EU and Serbia and Montenegro on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) planned for February may be cancelled because of Belgrade's lack of co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The EU began negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro on a SAA three months ago, but the talks already hang in the balance.

Relations between Belgrade and the ICTY improved throughout 2005 as scores of war-crime indictees surrendered following Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's calls for them to give themselves up. But the ICTY wants Serbia to extradite four more men: Zdravko Tolimir, Stojan Zupljanin, the former leader of Croatia's Serbs Goran Hadzic, and the most prominent of them all, former Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic.

In addition, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic is seen as a common obligation for Bosnia and Serbia. The Belgrade authorities and the ICTY prosecution believe that another indictee, former Serbian police commander Vlastimir Djordjevic, is hiding in Russia.

The deputy director of the Serbian government's office for association with the EU, Srdjan Majstorovic, said that the Belgrade authorities had been "clearly told" that SAA negotiations could be suspended because of the war crimes issue.

"In the mandate for the talks with Serbia and Montenegro, the European Commission said that the negotiations could not be completed and the SAA signed without [Serbia's] full co-operation with the ICTY. But the talks can also be frozen if Belgrade fails to co-operate fully with the tribunal. Chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte will make the final assessment of the co-operation," Majstorovic said.

Serbia and Montenegro are facing an uphill struggle to get the SAA talks going again in February: during her last visit to Belgrade in December, Del Ponte expressed her disappointment over the failure to arrest Mladic and she also criticised the authorities in Belgrade when reporting to the UN Security Council.

The head of the government office for association with the EU, Tanja Miscevic, said recently that once suspended, restarting the talks would be very difficult since all EU member states, not just the Commission, had to agree on such a move.

While EU officials have not given any formal deadline, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus, who heads the Serbian negotiating team, said at the end of the last round of talks in December that the next round would not take place unless full co-operation was forthcoming. Labus told Belgrade media that co-operation was an absolute condition for talks to continue and that it was not happening yet.

Serbia and Montenegro has held two rounds of talks with EU representatives.

A first round, held in November at the level of the state union between Serbia and Montenegro related to minority protection, adoption of necessary laws, co-operation with the ICTY.

A second round, on 21-22 December, marked the first time the EU's twin-track approach was implemented, whereby separate talks were held with the delegations of Serbia and Montenegro on economic issues.

Serbia will also need to fight the bad image it has in Europe. According to the latest Eurobarometer poll published in December, Serbia and Montenegro is the last but two among the 12 countries EU citizens would like to see in the EU, just ahead of Albania and Turkey. Serbia and Montenegro's accession was favoured by 39% of those polled, 44% were against it, while 17% remained undecided.

Srdjan Majstorovic said that the office for association with the EU was aware of the problem and was considering contracting a company to lobby for Serbia's interests in the EU.

But the best lobbying for Serbia and Montenegro would be full cooperation with the ICTY and the signing of the SAA in November 2006, as planned at the beginning of the talks. For the time being, Serbia's path to Europe does not lead through Brussels but The Hague.

• Igor Jovanovic is a Transitions Online correspondent. A longer version of this article was published on www.tol.cz.

Author suggests that negotiations between the EU and Serbia and Montenegro on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) planned for February 2006 might be cancelled because of Belgrade's lack of co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'EU-Balkans'.

European Commission: DG Enlargement: Countries of the Western Balkans: Serbia and Montenegro http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/potential-candidates/serbia/index_en.htm

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