EU-Serbia Agreement Sparks Controversy

President Boris Tadic received a death threat from a Serbian opposition group this week after he signed a preliminary membership deal with the European Union.



The reported threat is an extreme example of how the issue is stirring up strong feelings in the region, both positive and negative.



The Serbian daily newspaper Blic reported that the message warned Tadic he would receive retribution “for betraying the country”, and that “as a proven traitor of the Serbian people, he will receive what he deserves – a bullet in the head”.



The Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, which could hand Serbia full EU membership in the future, has widened the gulf between pro-European parties and their nationalist and socialist opponents in the run-up to a parliamentary election on May 11.



Serbia’s outgoing prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, said signing the SAA amounted to a recognition of Kosovo’s independence – the electorate’s number one concern.



“We warned our coalition partners not to rush headlong into something that would have them recognising the independence of Kosovo,” he told Serbs at a rally in Kosovo this week.



He said the SAA was “legally null and void” and warned that it could be cancelled after the election.



The election pits President Tadic’s Democratic Party, in partnership with the G17+ Coalition, against the nationalist Serbian Radical Party. Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia could play a pivotal role if neither of the other two secures an outright majority.



The agreement has also attracted criticism from international observers, who said that by offering the SAA before the election, the EU had interfered in Serbian politics by trying to boost support for Tadic.



According to a Strategic Marketing poll, 53 per cent of Serbs are in favour of the SAA, while 29 per cent oppose it.



“The whole concept of the SAA [has been] distorted,” said Sabine Freizer, the International Crisis Group’s Europe programme director.



“I do not believe that on the eve of an election it is good to sign such an important document. As we’ve seen in Serbia… it is something that is politicised and that is being used by the parties in the campaign – which I think is very unfortunate,” Freizer told IWPR.



The SAA was originally tied to Serbia’s cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal, and the EU has come under fire for allowing Belgrade to sign before handing over Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the men most wanted by the court.



Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the war, and his commander-in-chief Mladic are still on the run from charges of orchestrating the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica that led to the death of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.



The Belgian and Dutch governments had urged the EU to refuse to allow Belgrade to sign the agreement until it arrested the men.



However, EU officials – led by foreign policy chief Javier Solana – had in recent weeks made no secret of their determination to invite Serbia to sign the SAA. On April 29, Belgium and the Netherlands conceded their position at a meeting of European Council ministers, paving the way for the SAA to go ahead.



Belgian foreign minister Karel De Gucht said his government, like the Netherlands, wanted to allow the EU to send a “positive signal” about its purpose in Serbia.



Lotte Leicht, the EU advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said the decision meant Europe had relinquished its trump card in relation to the war crimes fugitives.



“The EU’s signing of the SAA despite Mladic’s continued status as a fugitive is a blow to the Bosnian victims and their families who have long awaited justice for the tragedy of Srebrenica,” said Leicht.



“Signing the SAA was a major carrot to induce Serbia to show its commitment to the rule of law and human rights by arresting Mladic. The EU has given that away.”



International observers also want the EU to stop moving the goal-posts over accession.



Freizer described it as “extremely disturbing” that the EU had let Serbia sign the SAA because this meant breaking its own preconditions for a second time. The EU first backtracked in October last year, when it allowed Serbia to initial the document without there being full cooperation with the tribunal.



Leicht urged EU states not to allow Serbian integration to progress any further until the conditions of tribunal cooperation are met. For Serbia to gain full EU integration, the SAA would have to be ratified by all 27 member states, a process Leicht believes should be dependent on the arrest of the war crimes suspects.



“We look to EU countries that support justice to refuse to ratify the SAA with Serbia without Mladic’s arrest,” said Leicht.



“Failure to do so would mean moving the first country found to be violating the Genocide Convention towards EU membership. This stands in contradiction to the EU members’ professed dedication to human rights principles.”



The reference is to the ruling by the International Court of Justice in February 2007 that – contrary to the lawsuit brought by the Bosnian government – Serbia did not commit or incite genocide, and was not complicit in the crime. But judges found that Serbia failed to use its influence to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica, and did not comply with its international obligations to punish those responsible.



The EU has been accused of compromising its principles and bowing to the shortcomings of a particular state.



“I think it’s extremely bad that basically Europe is showing that its values can be bent, and that upholding the rule of law and basic human rights can be bent for political interests,” ICG’s Freizer said.



In the Balkans as a whole, the SAA has had a mixed response. Some are bitter that Serbia has leapfrogged the conditions that other states had to meet, while others welcome the greater security that Serbian membership of the EU would bring.



According to Sead Numanovic, deputy editor-in-chief of Bosnian daily Avaz, Bosnians are disappointed that their country has to meet strict criteria on police reforms in the federal entity of Republika Srpska, while the EU has backtracked on the criteria it set Serbia.



“There is a kind of a puzzlement among the people as to how it is possible that Serbia is not doing anything that is required from the EU and getting everything, and why Bosnia is doing… everything and getting nothing,” said Numanovic.



He said Bosnians feel that, as in the war in the former Yugoslavia, they are once again losing out at the hands of international powers.



“The reactions are, of course, negative ones because people believe that the aggressor is once more rewarded and the victim is again punished. It has been seen as a betrayal by the EU,” Numanovic added.



Unsurprisingly, there is increased ill-feeling towards the EU in the region, especially in Bosnia.



“It’s not the best way to attract and encourage other countries in the region to fulfil all obligations,” said Senad Pecanin, editor-in-chief of the Bosnian weekly magazine Dani.



Almedina Ademovic, president of the Bosnian Youth organisation in the Netherlands, believes that while Serbia signing the SAA is good for stability, Bosnia should have been a higher priority.



“It would be better to first concentrate on Bosnia, to reach out a hand to us, to stabilise that region, and then concentrate on Serbia. Because our region is more in conflict than Serbia,” she told IWPR.



However, Numanovic feels anti-EU sentiment is not justified since he believes Bosnia politicians are to blame for the “constant delays” in signing their country’s SAA. Bosnia is now scheduled to sign on May 26.



Numanovic also suggested that the political wrangling in Belgrade over the SAA issue meant Serbia would meddle less in Bosnia, specifically in the running of Republika Srpska.



“This dispute is going to preoccupy Serbian leaders with their own issues, so they are going to interfere less in Bosnian affairs,” he told IWPR.



Meanwhile, Croatian president Stjepan Mesic welcomed the signing of the SAA as good for stability in the Balkans.



Political commentators in Croatia agreed. Sandro Knezovic at the Department for International Economic and Political Relations at the Institute for International Relations in Croatia said there was some bitterness that Serbia had got an easier ride than Croatia, but the overall mood was positive.



“Croatia has managed to move forward and now generally [Croatians] will say it’s not that fair but [they] don’t care,” he told IWPR.



“What Croatia needs on its eastern border is a stable partner.”



Political observers in the region also stress that the SAA is a much-needed concrete sign from the EU that it supports Serbia.



Before the SAA, it was easy for Serbian radicals to undermine their pro-European opponents’ arguments in favour of EU integration by pointing out that no solid contractual ties were in place, Knezovic explained.



“Unless you have something strong that you are able to rely on, you are unable to move it [EU integration] forward. And unless you move it forward, you are achieving nothing,” he said.



Knezovic believes that Serbia must undergo a transitional process of “catharsis” before the political focus can shift from issues of national pride to problems such as corruption and crime, which are currently of only secondary importance.



He thinks the SAA could be a “positive stimulus” for such a transition.



“[The SAA] will enable them to start tackling the issues that are essential in order to pass this sort of catharsis and then we can speak about meeting the real criteria [on EU integration],” Knezovic told IWPR.



Numanovic, too, expressed hope that the SAA would have a beneficial effect on Serbia’s political development.



“What we need is a stable Serbia, Serbia with a European future and European orientation. Signing the SAA eventually is going to draw Serbia to that line,” he said.



Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.