A JOINT Oireachtas committee on European affairs met yesterday to discuss Serbia’s application to join the EU, which will be formally presented before the Dáil in the autumn.
The stabilisation and association agreement is the first step towards EU membership for Serbia, but all member states must first ratify the proposal in their national parliament.
The proposal seeking Serbia’s EU membership has been scrutinised by victims of the war in Bosnia, who argue Serbia has yet to fully comply with its obligation to arrest all the perpetrators of war crimes. Of those indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, only General Ratko Mladic and the former political leader of the Serb entity in Croatia, Goran Hadzic, have not faced justice since the court’s establishment in 1993.
Mirsad Ademovic, who lives in Dublin, fled Srebrenica in 1992 but lost at least 53 members of his extended family in the war. He made a presentation to the committee highlighting the injustice victims of the war will feel if Serbia joins the EU before arresting wanted war criminals.
“All of those who are directly affected by the genocide in Srebrenica cannot find peace until the case is concluded, until legal justice is served,” Mr Ademovic said.
Kurt Bassuener of the Democratisation Policy Council, based in Sarajevo, also made a presentation and outlined the present economic and political difficulties in Bosnia.
EU ministers are to meet in October to discuss pushing forward Serbia’s candidacy.