BELGRADE (Serbia), December 22 (SeeNews) – Serbia on Tuesday formally applied to join the European Union, state-owned broadcaster RTS reported.
Serbia's President Boris Tadic submitted the membership application to Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in Stockholm, RTS (www.rts.rs) reported. Sweden currently holds the rotating presidency of the bloc.
The Balkan country made substantial progress towards EU accession with the signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) in April 2008 and with the arrest of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic in August 2008. But its progress towards accession has been hindered by the government’s failure to arrest fugitive Bosnian Serb war crimes indictee General Ratko Mladic.
The Hague tribunal indicted Mladic and Karadzic for the genocide in Srebrenica, where some 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim males were murdered and buried in mass graves in 1995, and for masterminding the siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo in which more than 10,000 people lost their lives. U.N. prosecutor Serge Brammertz said earlier this month that Serbia was co-operating more efficiently in the search for Mladic.
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