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The upcoming elections have triggered speculations that negotiations between Serbia and the EU might resume even prior to Ratko Mladić’s arrest. European officials have been sending clear messages during the last few months, stating that the EU welcomes Serbia, but that the conditions set by the Hague Tribunal have to be met. Serbia’s journey towards the EU came to a halt on May 3rd when EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn announced that the EU indefinitely suspended the negotiations with Serbia, since Hague fugitive Ratko Mladić had not been put behind bars.

With Serbia determined to reject the UN plan for Kosovo, the European Union has conceded it may postpone planned consultations on the plan until a new government is formed in Belgrade. An EU delegation to Belgrade, led by foreign policy chief Javier Solana, enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and separately Britain’s Europe minister Geoff Hoon, gave ground on February 7 after meeting Serbia’s president Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic. After urging them to form a democratic government and take part in planned consultations over the Kosovo’s final status, they indicated they might push back the timetable.

Even though the radicals won most votes in Serbia's general elections (EurActiv 22/01/07), two-thirds of the seats in parliament will lean towards democracy. Therefore, a group of pro-European reform-oriented parties is likely to form the new government.

The EU on Monday (12 February) gave its clearest signal yet that it is ready to restart integration talks with Serbia before Belgrade hands over top war crimes fugitives such as Ratko Mladic.

The choice facing Serbia as it prepares for elections on January 21st is a stark one. With ultranationalists led by a Hague indictee likely to win the largest single bloc of votes, the oft-quarreling democratic parties are under pressure to overcome their differences.

Pro-EU reformists are nosing ahead in the latest polls before Serbia's elections on Sunday (21 January) - a pivotal event that could raise prospects of Serbia EU entry and Kosovo independence, or aggravate the risk of renewed ethnic conflict in the heart of modern Europe.

On 8 November 2006 the Commission approved the Strategy Paper and the candidate countries' (Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey) and potential candidate countries' (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244) progress reports on their road towards the EU.

The UN's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte has appealed to the EU not to jeopardise her efforts to pursue a top Serbian war crimes suspect in the interests of securing support for a UN plan on the future status of Kosovo. Mrs Del Ponte met with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Wednesday (31 January) and urged him to continue Europe's pressure on Belgrade to deliver ex-general Ratko Mladic.

Centrist parties did worse than they expected in Serbia’s first general election and most diplomats and observers predicted difficulties ahead in forming a new government.But although the hard-line nationalist Serbian Radical Party, SRS, won most votes with 28.5 per cent of ballots on January 21, it will again be denied the chance to form a government as it lacks potential coalition partners.This means that the so-called democratic bloc will form the new administration. However, analysts say this would not be easy, firstly because of rivalries within the democratic bloc and secondly because no party among them has emerged as the clear leader.

Divisions within the European Union on how to deal with Serbia have surfaced. While the Commission and some member states look eager to speed up Belgrade’s membership bid, others are angered by what they see as undue leniency.

On July 14, the European Union's Council of Ministers adopted a new framework for providing aid to candidate countries and would-be candidates. Called the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (I.P.A.), it aims to consolidate several aid programs, thereby increasing efficiency, and better targeting the funds. It sounds like a sensible idea, but it could be a mixed bag for the official candidate countries — Croatia, Macedonia, and Turkey — as well as candidate-hopefuls Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

Serbia's election result has given new impetus to an EU debate on how to unfreeze Belgrade's EU integration process, with some member states keen to give moderates a boost by accepting softer conditions for compliance with the UN's war crimes tribunal, the ICTY.

Almost a decade after the Dayton Agreement, and almost five years after the fall of the Milosevic regime in Belgrade, the Western Balkans are a relatively stable region with no military conflicts, no ongoing ethnic cleansing, where elections are free, if not always fair. In Thessaloniki in June 2003, the European Union committed itself to integrating the countries from the region. But what does this commitment really mean?

Inhaltsverzeichnis [Verbergen] 1 Akademische Ausbildung 2 Šešeljs Inhaftierungen 3 Gründung der Serbischen Radikalen Partei 4 Rolle während der Milošević-Regierung 5 Zusammenarbeit mit Führern anderer rechtsextremer Parteien 6 Politische Erfolge 7 Anklage wegen Kriegsverbrechen 8 Privates 9 Zitate 10 Weblinks