“The negotiations have been interrupted”: the European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn did not mince words in explaining, in a briefing on 3 May, the suspension of the negotiations between the European Union and Serbia on a “stabilization and association” accord. The decision, which freezes the relations between Brussels and Belgrade, was taken after Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International Tribunal in The Hague on the former Yugoslavia, had informed Rehn of the “disappointing cooperation” provided by the Balkan country in securing the arrest of the Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, wanted for war crimes committed during the inter-ethnic conflict in the 1990s. Rehn, after receiving an assessment from The Hague on the collaboration of the Serbian government, or lack of it, in securing the arrest of Mladic and his extradition to face war crimes charges before the international court, explained: “We will resume the negotiations once Serbia gives full collaboration” to the Court. For his part Serbian Premier Vojislav Kostunica declared, in a written statement, that the suspension of the negotiations “is an enormous blow for Serbia, and for the government and people of Serbia”. Kostunica then published a declaration in which he ordered Ratko Mladic to give himself up to the Tribunal: “Never in our history – says the statement – has it happened that a whole State and its people have had to pay for the conduct of a single official”.
