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President Boris Tadic formally applied for European Union membership for Serbia on Tuesday, almost two decades after ex-Yugoslavia collapsed in ethnic bloodshed that kept most of its republics out of mainstream Europe. The EU unfroze an interim trade agreement with Belgrade earlier this month and allowed citizens of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro to travel freely to the bloc. The EU had previously blocked Serbia's progress, demanding full cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague and the arrest of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide over the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo. Here is a timeline on Serbia's path towards EU membership.

‘Adoption of the Resolution on strategy of the EU enlargement by the European Parliament is an exceptionally positive event for Serbia. Still, future decisions by the EU ministers should not be prejudiced’, Bozidar Djelic, Serbia Deputy Prime Minister for European integration said yesterday. This moderate reaction to decision by the European Parliament to accept as an obligation the EU enlargement onto the West Balkans and to request from the EU Council urgent unblocking of the transient trade agreement between Serbia and the EU is only on the surface while under it there is a hectic and increasingly successful activity by Serbian diplomacy leading towards filing of application for the EU membership even as early as in 2014. The decision over unblocking of the SAA is to be made at the EU summit scheduled for December 10. Until then Serbian officials have to do a lot of work. Thus, within diplomatic initiative in Brussels, Serbia President shall attend the meeting of ministers deciding on visa suspension on November 30. After that the Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic is to meet with his EU counterparts at the OSCE meeting in Athens on December 2. The USA Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is expected to come to the meeting. She recently openly supported unblocking of the SAA with Serbia. A day earlier the Chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Serge Brammertz shall present to the UN Security Council the most positive report ever on cooperation by Serbia with the Hague Tribunal. Minister Jeremic shall visit Brussels on December 7 and 8 when the EU ministers are to decide on the SAA unblocking. He shall speak at the Summit on December 10. A day before the summit Deputy Premier Djelic is to meet with the Foreign Minister of Spain, a chairing country and with the EU enlargement commissioner. Serbia President Boris Tadic said that ‘Serbia shall file application for membership after unblocking of the transient trade agreement’. According to his words the time for candidacy shall come when it is clear that our application is going to be accepted.

EU foreign affairs ministers on Monday (7 December) removed restrictions against a trade agreement with Serbia after the Netherlands put aside objections related to Belgrade's performance on war crimes probes. The agreement was signed in April 2008 and was never ratified due to the Dutch position, even though its terms were implemented internally by Serbia in a situation playing to the EU's financial advantage.

But a positive report from UN chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz on the way in which Belgrade is co-operating with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague helped persuade the Netherlands to back down. The move is good news for Belgrade on its EU accession track and comes just one week after the bloc's interior ministers decided to lift visa requirements for Serb citizens from 19 December. Serbia and the EU in 2008 signed a so-called Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) - seen as a first step toward membership - of which the trade pact was a part. But the SAA is unlikely to be fully ratified until Mladic and Hadzic are behind bars.

Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle deliberately left early from a regional summit in Slovenia this weekend, signalling that the European Commission's patience with the Western Balkans has its limits.

On a visit to Albania, Füle used unusually tough language, warning Tirana that a prolonged political stalemate would harm the country's EU accession prospects

From Tirana, Füle went to Brdo pri Kranju, a resort in Slovenia, to attend – and make an early departure – from a regional conference on the European future of the Western Balkans. The conference was boycotted by Serbian President Boris Tadić due to the presence of Kosovo Prime Minister Hasim Thaçi. Belgrade had warned it would only attend international conferences where Kosovo is represented under its UNMIK heading, as the country was a UN protectorate before unilaterally declaring independence in February 2008 (EurActiv 08/03/10).

Serbia's bid to become official candidate for accession to the European Union is likely to be delayed until autumn due to the Balkan country's intransigent position on Kosovo's status, WAZ.EUobserver has learned from well-informed diplomatic sources in Brussels. Member states have indicated they may again postpone processing Serbia's membership application, which Belgrade hopes to see happening in June. The reason is Serbia's intention to raise the question of Kosovo's status at the United Nations. Belgrade is waiting for the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the former Serbian province's declaration of independence, and has threatened to take it to the UN General Assembly.

Chief UN Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Serge Brammertz held talks on Tuesday (4 May) in Brussels with EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle, Croatian press agency HINA reports.

The press in Croatia reports that few details emerged from the meeting. However, it is widely assumed that Brammertz was able to give his assessment of Croatia's cooperation with the ICTY, as he had previously indicated.The high-level Belgian prosecutor, who replaced the Swiss Carla Del Ponte on 1 January 2008, said he expected Croatia to submit to the ICTY prosecution military documents on the so-called 'artillery files' case (see 'Background') and to be engaged in intensive dialogue.Several EU member states blocked Croatia's EU entry talks in chapter 23 - which concerns the judiciary and fundamental rights - over the artillery files, which the ICTY wants and Croatia claims it cannot locate.The impasse was broken in mid-February when the Netherlands withdrew its reservations about opening chapter 23 and Croatia was invited to submit its negotiating position for the chapter as part of its EU accession negotiations.

EmailSharePrint Back to Brussels Blog homepage The pace picks up on EU enlargement into the Balkans November 13, 2009 3:59pm Enlargement of the European Union is, almost imperceptibly, moving forward once more.  EU foreign ministers are expected next week to forward Albania’s membership application to the European Commission for an opinion.  This is a necessary technical step on the path to entry - small, but important. The Commission is already preparing opinions on the applications of Iceland and Montenegro.  The opinions will take quite some time to deliver - longer for Albania and Montenegro than for Iceland - but the machinery is now in motion. There are signs of progress elsewhere, too.  For a long time Serbia’s efforts to draw closer to the EU have been held back by the refusal of the Netherlands to permit implementation of Serbia’s EU stabilisation and association agreement.  The Dutch insist that Serge Brammertz, the chief United Nations war crimes prosecutor, must first of all declare that Serbia is fully complying with its efforts to capture war crimes suspects - principally, Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander. Brammertz is due to hand his latest report to the UN Security Council in early December, and the Serbian government appears confident that it will be positive.  That would remove the Dutch veto and allow Serbia to make a formal application for EU membership.