Mladic arrested, the way to the EU is free for Belgrade (Maj)
(BRUSSELS2) Taking the information coming from Belgrade with caution, the European Commission has welcomed the arrest of General Ratko Mladic, one of the main architects of the attacks against civilians carried out in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in particular the massacre of Srebrenica, in July 1995 . " If so, it shows that Serbia has understood the importance of full cooperation with the criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, of reconciliation with history and its people, and has decided to get closer to the European path “, explained the spokesperson for Commissioner Stefan Füle (Enlargement). An arrest which is also timely for Belgrade, at a time when the High Representative of the EU, Catherine Ashton, is visiting the region, at a moment that cannot be symbolic: the day when Serbia signs a defense agreement for participate in EU peacekeeping operations. Serbia intends to obtain the status of candidate country - which signals the start of accession negotiations - at the December summit.
(Update) Arnaud Danjean, deputy chairman of the Defense Commission, and a good connoisseur of this region, was one of the first to welcome this decision, on the European side. " Mladic's arrest was not only a "technical" condition in the process of bringing Belgrade closer to the European Union, it was also a moral and strategic imperative for Serbian society itself, in order to definitively turn the heartbreaks 90s page he said in a statement. That " paves the way for Serbia's EU candidacy. "Same feeling with Doris Pack, another Balkan specialist in the European Parliament who nevertheless believes that Serbia must continue" his efforts to hand over fugitive Goran Hadžić to the ICTYshe recalled. " I hope that General Ratko Mladić's delivery to justice will bring comfort to the families of the victims ».
NB: The arrest was confirmed by President Tadic at 13 p.m. And, despite a request from his lawyers contesting his extradition, he was extradited on Tuesday evening (May 30) to the criminal court for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, where he was imprisoned in the Scheveningen detention center.
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