Brussels, 17/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - There is little likelihood that the stabilisation and association agreement (SAA) between the EU and Serbia will be signed on 28 January, as the Slovenian EU presidency hopes, since the Netherlands has declared it will only give its go-ahead to sealing the agreement once Belgrade has arrested and transferred Radko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. “My signature is linked to full cooperation with the tribunal in The Hague and the best proof that there is full cooperation is that they deliver Mladic to The Hague”, said Maxime Verhagen, Foreign Minister of the Netherlands, after an interview with his Slovenian counterpart and President-in-Office of the EU Council, Dimitrij Rupel, on 16 January in The Hague. “If Serbia really wants a European future, they must also cooperate with the handing over of the persons who are responsible for the only genocide in the European continent after World War II” (Ed: the massacre of Srebrenica in 1995), Mr Verhagen stressed.
In addition to the Netherlands, Belgium in particular is also opposed to signing the SAA until the condition of “full cooperation” with the ICTY by Belgrade has been met. The new chief prosecutor of the ICTY, Serge Brammertz, will focus on this question at his meeting with Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht in Brussels on 18 January. The Belgian stance should be specified after the meeting. On Wednesday 16 January, Mr Brammertz discussed the matter with Dimitrij Rupel in The Hague. Mr Rupel then asserted that the ICTY chief prosecutor had not made a new assessment of Serbian cooperation. For the moment, therefore, the report drafted in December by former Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte remains valid. This report notes progress made but affirms that there is not yet full cooperation. (H.B.)