Tag: war crimes

MEPs applauded a motion approving Croatia's EU membership on 1 July 2013, after passing it yesterday (1 December) by a large majority in the European Parliament. EU heads of states are expected to sign the Accession Treaty at next week's summit in Brussels.

The EU urged for 'prudence' yesterday (6 October) as tensions grew between Croatia, an EU candidate expected to become the 28th member state, and its neigbour Serbia, which indicted Croatian nationals over war crimes in the fratricidal wars between 1991 and 1995. EurActiv Serbia contributed to this article.

Public support for EU accession in Croatia has reached an all-time low after The Hague sentenced two former Croatian generals to heavy prison terms, according to reports in the country's press.

EU foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg on Monday (25 October), are expected to finally unblock Serbia's association process, which has been stalled for years over the Netherlands' insistence on seeing war criminal Ratko Mladić brought to justice.

Serbia took a step forward yesterday (14 June) on the road to joining the European Union, with EU governments rewarding its improved cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

On an official visit in Sarajevo, Croatian President Ivo Josipovic apologised for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s and called on the entire region to cooperate more closely in all areas, the Hina news agency reported.

Serbia's parliament apologised on 30 March for the 1995 killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, but the process only highlighted how deeply polarised the country remains about its wartime past.

A police operation aimed at locating documentation needed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a success, the Croatian Police Directorate announced yesterday (10 December). If confirmed, the findings may greatly help Croatia's EU accession bid, experts said.

While the arrest of accused war criminal Radovan Karadzic on 21 July could signal the beginning of Serbia's reconciliation with its role in the Western Balkan wars of the 1990s, Kosovo could still prove a stumbling block for further EU negotiations, argues Tomas Valasek in a 25 July commentary for the Centre for European Reform.

"The situation today is better than it was a year ago" but more progress is needed before Serbia can move closer to the EU, the chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, told EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on 15 October.

EU foreign policy Chief Javier Solana made an appeal to Serbia to improve its relations and has suspended progress on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

The Commission rebuts the criticism of Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who blames the EU for Serbia's lack of progress on its path towards the EU.

Croatian government comfortably survives vote of no-confidence over decision to extradite suspected war criminals to UN tribunal

Milosevic calls UN war crimes tribunal "illegal" and refuses to cooperate