SERBIA: April drew to a close yesterday with still no sign of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic in handcuffs, and an air of inevitability about the negative consequences for Serbia's European Union membership bid.
It is the story of an ever-moving "deadline" for the handover of the man charged with Europe's worst atrocity since the second World War, the slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, towards the end of the Bosnia war.
Brussels has warned Belgrade it will suspend the next round of scheduled talks on a formal association accord unless Bosnian Serb wartime commander Mladic, wanted for genocide, is in detention at The Hague war crimes tribunal.
The 64-year-old general has been on the run since 2001 when the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, his protector, was extradited to the United Nations tribunal. The Hague's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte says he is sheltered in Serbia.
Brussels has issued its warnings several times. Last Friday, the deadline for Mladic's handover appeared to be the end of April or today. But it has slipped again by a few days.
"I should get an updated assessment of the situation from the international tribunal in The Hague on May 3rd" EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn wrote in a comment in yesterday's edition of Politika, the pro-government Belgrade daily.
"If the problem is not resolved by then, the Commission will have to postpone the round of talks scheduled for May 11th. The talks will be put on hold until full co-operation is achieved."
Mr Rehn is due to consult Ms del Ponte on May 3rd. But as events proved last October, when the EU went ahead with the launch of association talks despite her negative report on Serbia, Mladic is by no means the only issue in play.
Scarred by war, sanctions and isolation from 1991 to 2001, and blamed for much of the mayhem attending the break-up of Yugoslavia, Serbia faces a sea of problems as it struggles for a place in the European mainstream, even with EU sympathy.
This year it is likely to lose treasured Kosovo province, where the ethnic Albanian majority wants independence, and faces possible divorce from its old partner Montenegro, where half of voters favour a split.
Neither scenario is calculated to boost Serb confidence, and there are fears, founded on poll figures showing their enduring popularity, that a series of slaps in the face for Serbia could just possibly bring ultra-nationalists back to power.
To the hardliners, handing over a "war hero" such as Mladic would be a sell-out demanding a snap election to oust the government responsible and put the West in its place.
Analysts here think such a risk is easing the arm-twisting tactics of the EU, which wants a soft landing on Kosovo and no crisis over Montenegro when it votes on independence on May 21st.
Even if EU talks are suspended in May, Serbian media reports say prime minister Vojislav Kostunica does not expect the halt to last very long, putting back the ultimate signing of an accord by maximum two months, to November this year.
"People of Serbia deserve to move forward to their European destiny. Do not allow Ratko Mladic to stand in the way," wrote Mr Rehn.
Most EU members believe the union would only be hurting itself if it banned 7.5 million Serbs from joining.