EU Tells Serbia: No Mladic, No Entry

The European Union today suspended membership talks with Serbia over its failure to deliver the Bosnian Serb military leader Ratklo Mladic to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Mladic is the UN tribunal's second most wanted war crimes suspect from the Yugoslav wars after Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader. Both are charged in connection with the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebenica.

Announcing the decision to suspend talks, the EU enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, said:"Serbia must show that nobody is above the law and that anybody indicted for serious crimes will face justice."

The western Balkans are a key area for EU enlargement, with supporters of the process arguing that the 25-member bloc has a choice between promoting stability and living with a volatile collection of states on its borders.

The talks had been intended to conclude a stabilisation and association agreement with Serbia, the first step towards EU membership.

But Mr Rehn's announcement, made after consulting the chief UN prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, could further destabilise Serbia's shaky, centre-left coalition. Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, is dependent for parliamentary support on nationalist hardliners who oppose Mladic's extradition.

In a statement to the press, Mr Kostunica said Mladic was "hiding all alone" after a crackdown on his support network, and called on him to surrender.

He said his government had done "absolutely everything in its power" to capure Mladic and send him to The Hague.

Ms Del Ponte later accused Serbia of misleading UN prosecutors by telling them Mladic's capture was imminent.

Because of his precarious position, Mr Kostunica was reported to have been trying to persuade Mladic to give himself up voluntarily.

His government faces a summer with plenty of potential for conflict with nationalists: Montenegro votes on dissolving its three-year union with Serbia on May 21, and the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo - officially a Serbian province - is seeking full independence in talks under way in Vienna.

The Serbian deputy prime minister, Miroljub Labus, said yesterday the suspension of membership talks would represent a serious defeat for liberal parties advocating closer cooperation with the EU. He predicted that it would have "serious repercussions" on the political situation in Serbia.

Slovenia is the only former Yugoslav republic that is a member of the EU, but Croatia and Macedonia have both signed stabilisation and association agreements with the bloc, which is due to expand to 27 members next year with the entry of Romania and Bulgaria.

Croatia's membership talks were delayed over its failure to surrender General Ante Gotovina to the UN tribunal to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The impasse was broken in October last year when EU national leaders decided to begin talks with Turkey, too. Gen Gotovina, the third most wanted suspect after Mladic, was arrested on the Spanish island of Tenerife the following December.