EU condemns Serbia’s ministers for attending funeral of war criminal Mladic

European Union leaders sharply criticized the presence of high-level Serbian officials at the funeral of Ratko Mladic, saying the images from the commemoration were shocking and signalled a failure to reckon with atrocities from the 1990s. The identical statements by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa said official support for the event contradicted the values that guide Serbia’s EU accession process.

The funeral drew a range of senior figures: Serbia’s defence and justice ministers, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, representatives of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska including its president Sinisa Karan, and Russia’s ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko. Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, did not attend, though he described the occasion as an emotional outpouring and his son was present. Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic had initially announced military and state honours for Mladic, prompting international protest and a subsequent downgrade of the planned official recognition.

Mladic died in The Hague last month at age 84 while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1990s Bosnian War. His role is closely associated with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which forces under his command killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys — an atrocity internationally recognized as genocide. Bosnia reacted to the funeral by downgrading diplomatic ties and recalling most of its embassy staff from Belgrade.

The incident intensifies a standoff between Brussels and Belgrade ahead of the EU’s annual assessment of candidate countries. Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos had already cancelled a planned trip to Belgrade and warned that glorifying Mladic’s death would conflict with EU values; she also previously cautioned that Serbia might lose access to about 1.5 billion euros in EU funds over alleged irregularities in municipal elections. The European Commission has not yet said how the funeral will affect Serbia’s accession process — von der Leyen’s spokesperson said the bloc was still looking into it. The condemnation also drew criticism from some commentators who pointed to perceived inconsistencies in EU responses to other international situations, with former Portuguese official Bruno Macaes calling the rebuke “embarrassing.”