On August 27, 2026, in The Hague, a person convicted by the international tribunal of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes died while serving a life sentence. However, his remains were brought back to Serbia by a government plane, the coffin draped with the Serbian flag, and a solemn farewell held in Belgrade. All this inevitably sparked reactions in Europe.
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European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, even canceled a planned visit to Serbia, emphasizing that glorifying war criminals is incompatible with the reconciliation process and European values.
I have personally been to Serbia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I unequivocally state that the mentioned Mladić is a cruel war criminal, but I would not agree to “label” all Serbs because of that. It cannot be said that all Serbs (or even the majority of the people of Serbia) glorify war criminals. Serbia still has a civil society, human rights defenders, journalists who have been protesting for many years against the heroization of Mladić and other convicts. In Belgrade, attempts have been made several times to remove drawings glorifying Mladić, and activists who did so faced threats and even pressure from law enforcement.
The European Commission (of which M. Kos is a member!) already stated in its 2025 report on Serbia that some political parties, politicians, and media continue to provide public space to convicted war criminals, support them, and deny war crimes, including the Srebrenica genocide, without any legal consequences. Serbian human rights activists counted at least 60 cases of glorification of ten convicted war criminals and at least 50 cases of war crime denial in 2025 alone.
It was precisely based on this context that, together with a group of Members of the European Parliament, I signed a letter addressed to Commissioner Marta Kos, urging consideration of a temporary freeze on Serbia’s accession negotiations until the country’s authorities clearly distance themselves from the glorification of persons convicted of genocide and war crimes, and also not to offer new Schengen-related benefits. After all, a candidate country cannot simultaneously declare European ambitions and officially heroize individuals whose crimes have been established by international courts. I have no doubt – the integration of the Western Balkans is a strategic interest for all of Europe. However, membership is not just an economic project.
The European Union is also a community of historical responsibility. And Serbia has not yet fully assumed that historical responsibility. After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992, when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina began, Radovan Karadžić became the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, and Ratko Mladić their military commander. Judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found that the structures they led sought to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Croats from territories considered by the Bosnian Serb leadership as their own.
This was done through killings, persecution, deportations, and forced population transfers. Sarajevo lived under sniper and artillery siege for almost four years. Civilians were systematically shot in the streets, in food lines, or simply in their homes. The international tribunal found that the campaign’s goal was to terrorize the city’s civilian population. More than 10,000 people died during the siege of Sarajevo. And in July 1995, Srebrenica happened.
In the “safe zone” declared by the United Nations, forces led by Mladić separated Bosnian Muslim men and boys from their families. Nearly 8,000 men and boys were killed or disappeared, about 30,000 women, children, and elderly people were forcibly removed. The victims’ bodies were later exhumed and hidden in secondary and tertiary mass graves. Both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice recognized these actions as genocide.
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I remember 1997 when I visited Bosnia and Herzegovina (“Republika Srpska”). Posters with Karadžić’s photo and the inscription “He means peace – don’t touch him” were displayed in many places. Karadžić and Mladić hid from justice for a long time. However, Karadžić was arrested in Serbia only in 2008, having evaded the Hague tribunal for almost thirteen years.
In Belgrade, he even created another identity – calling himself Dragan Dabić, growing long hair and a beard, and publicly practicing alternative medicine. Mladić was arrested three years later – in May 2011 in the village of Lazarevo, Serbia, after almost sixteen years in hiding. It is important to note another side of the story here. They were ultimately arrested by Serbian authorities. Cooperation with the Hague tribunal became one of the important conditions for Belgrade’s European integration at the time. This is proof that European conditionality can work. Therefore, today it would be paradoxical to take a step back and turn people whom Serbia itself handed over to international justice back into heroes.
Ratko Mladić was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017, and in 2021 the appellate instance upheld the verdict. Radovan Karadžić was also finally sentenced to life imprisonment. Therefore, Mladić’s portrait on a house wall or a politician’s words calling him a “Serbian hero” are not innocent nostalgia. In April 2026, Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Šapić publicly posted a photo of Mladić and called him exactly that – “Serbia’s hero.” Such rhetoric does not help the Serbian European future.
The war crimes of the Yugoslav wars have specific perpetrators and leaders, so responsibility must be assumed by them and the politicians who heroize them, not by a Serbian student, businessman, or teacher who wants to see their country in the European Union. By the way, there are certainly many such people in Serbia. A representative survey of 1,000 Serbian residents conducted by the European Policy Centre at the beginning of 2026 showed that 39.8% of the population supports EU membership, 33.8% oppose it, and 26.4% are undecided. Support is highest among 18–29-year-olds. This is not an impressive result; on the contrary, supporters of European integration have decreased over the past year.
However, it is equally impossible to say that Serbian society has turned away from Europe. It is divided, and a significant part of it can still be convinced in favor of the European direction. Accession negotiations have been ongoing since 2014. Of the 35 negotiation chapters, 22 have been opened, two provisionally closed. The Commission notes that the further pace will primarily depend on rule of law reforms and normalization of relations with Kosovo. The problems are well known: political pressure on courts, corruption, deteriorating media freedom, insufficient investigation of war crimes and accountability for them. The Commission even noted a lack of progress in the judiciary and fundamental rights in 2025.
Another huge question is foreign policy. Serbia still has not joined the EU sanctions against Russia. Its alignment with the Common Foreign and Security Policy positions in October 2025 was only 63%. A candidate for the European Union cannot carry out two geopolitical political lines simultaneously – one for Brussels, another for Moscow. And there remains the Belgrade-Priština dialogue. The Commission very clearly states that the implementation of the 2023 agreement on normalization of relations is an essential condition for the European path of both sides.
European Union enlargement has always worked best when the European perspective was combined with very clear conditions: democracy, rule of law. In Serbia’s case, reconciliation with neighbors and recognition of historical truth are also needed. Only then can Serbia have a clear place in the EU. European Serbia cannot be built on the mythology of Mladić and Karadžić. More than thirty years after Srebrenica, it is time not to rewrite verdicts but finally to learn the historical lesson from them.
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