EU lifts hurdle on Serbia's path to accession
VALENTINA POP <mailto:[email protected]> Today @ 09:29 CET EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign affairs ministers on Monday (7 December) removed restrictions against a trade agreement with Serbia after the Netherlands put aside objections related to Belgrade's performance on war crimes probes. The agreement was signed in April 2008 and was never ratified due to the Dutch position, even though its terms were implemented internally by Serbia in a situation playing to the EU's financial advantage. http://ads.euobserver.com/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=276&campaignid=200&zoneid=4&loc=http%3A%2F%2Feuobserver.com%2F9%2F29112%2F%3Frk%3D1&cb=d897a7fe45 The Netherlands had taken a tough line on Belgrade's failure to hand over two war crimes suspects, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic. Mr Mladic is implicated in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, in which Dutch peacekeepers were blamed for a lack of action. The 67-year-old fugitive is still on the run. But a positive report from UN chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz on the way in which Belgrade is co-operating with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague helped persuade the Netherlands to back down. The move is good news for Belgrade on its EU accession track and comes just one week after the bloc's interior ministers decided to lift visa requirements for Serb citizens from 19 December. Serbia and the EU in 2008 signed a so-called Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) - seen as a first step toward membership - of which the trade pact was a part. But the SAA is unlikely to be fully ratified until Mladic and Hadzic are behind bars. Serb politicians have already made public their intention to formally apply for EU membership still this month, despite advice from the Swedish EU presidency to hold off until the SAA is in the bag. Serbia's President Boris Tadic on Monday welcomed the trade agreement move, saying it will make the country more attractive to foreign investors. "This makes our country a more reliable investment zone. We are working very much and very specifically on further European integration, and on the other hand very specifically on creating conditions for investments, in these times of crisis when every country is fighting for every job position," he said. http://euobserver.com/9/29112/?rk=1
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