The state-supported funeral of Ratko Mladic in Belgrade this week has raised a pressing question in Brussels: Can a country seek EU membership while giving a hero’s farewell to a convicted war criminal? For many, the event has shown that Serbia’s accession process has not merely stalled. It has largely lost its political drive. “For too long, the EU has kept treating Serbia as a normal candidate country,” Engjellushe Morina of the European Council on Foreign Relations told DW, despite Belgrade’s continued backsliding on democracy and the rule of law. Naim Leo Besiri of Serbia’s Institute for European Affairs adds: “The […]...

Keep on reading: Serbia, the conflicted EU candidate