A Serbia that continues to glorify Ratko Mladić while supporting the political rule of Aleksandar Vučić cannot become a member of the European Union, journalist and editor Andrew Rettman argues in an analysis published by EUobserver.
Rettman places Mladić’s funeral in Belgrade at the center of a broader critique of the European Union’s policy toward Serbia, arguing that Brussels has spent more than a decade investing politically and financially in bringing Belgrade closer to the EU without fundamentally changing the country’s political direction.
The analysis begins by recalling a 2011 statement by Albin Kurti, who described the EU’s policy toward Serbia at the time as an attempt to separate a “small octopus” from the “giant” Russia.
According to Rettman, since Serbia obtained EU candidate status in 2012, the country has received around €1.5 billion annually from the European Union, opened 22 of the 35 negotiating chapters and seen Vučić welcomed at more than 10 European summits. Serbian citizens have also been granted visa-free travel across most of Europe.
But Mladić’s funeral in Belgrade revealed another face of Serbia, Rettman argues.
“The quasi-state funeral in Serbia and the mass outpouring of mourning in Belgrade on Monday for Ratko Mladić, the general who committed genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, revealed that grotesque and regressive nationalism, completely at odds with EU values, still lurks beneath the surface of Serbian society,” Rettman writes.
“There is no place in Europe for glorifying war criminals”
Rettman notes that Vučić did not personally attend the funeral, but his son was present, along with Serbian government ministers, Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik, Russia’s ambassador to Serbia and thousands of mourners.
The ceremony was led by Serbian Patriarch Porfirije.
According to the analysis, the funeral has intensified debate within the EU over how Serbia should be treated, particularly as its European integration process has slowed significantly.
Rettman notes that the EU has not opened new negotiating chapters with Serbia since 2021 and that Brussels has withheld €1.5 billion in funding this year over concerns about democratic backsliding under Vučić.
European officials responded sharply following the funeral.
Austrian MEP Helmut Brandstetter, according to Rettman, called for an end to accession negotiations and EU funding if Belgrade continues to admire war criminals and exert pressure on protesters.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, meanwhile, said that “there is no place in Europe for glorifying war criminals.”
The two faces of Serbia
A significant part of the analysis focuses on Serbia’s mass student protests, which Rettman presents as evidence of another powerful current within Serbian society.
According to him, the protests have brought together younger and older citizens, people from cities and rural areas, as well as members of the middle and working classes.
Rettman describes this as Serbia’s “progressive side.”
In contrast, he sees the mobilization surrounding Mladić’s funeral as an expression of deeply rooted nationalism.
“Mladić’s funeral showed a completely different face of the country,” Rettman writes, describing what he sees as a “deep cultural and political dissonance” in Serbia nearly four decades after the beginning of the Yugoslav wars.
The analysis also refers to allegations that the phones of student leaders were targeted with Pegasus spyware, as well as reports of police violence against protesters.
A warning for Bosnia and the Balkans
Rettman extends his argument beyond Serbia, warning that the failure of European policy toward Belgrade could have consequences for the stability of the wider Western Balkans.
One of the scenarios he considers particularly concerning is the possibility that Vučić and Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik could contribute to a process aimed at the entity’s independence.
Such a development, he argues, could destabilize Bosnia and Herzegovina and encourage other ethnic territories in the region to challenge the post-war political arrangements established after the Yugoslav conflicts.
Rettman argues that such destabilization would also benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin by creating another source of pressure on the European Union at a time when Europe is already confronting Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Rettman: Vučić is no longer the partner presented at EU summits
In the most critical section of the analysis, Rettman examines Vučić’s political background during the rule of Slobodan Milošević.
He argues that Vučić’s political history contrasts sharply with the image of a pro-European leader and regular guest at European Union summits.
According to Rettman, Vučić’s government has become increasingly populist and authoritarian, drawing comparisons with the political models of Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński.
The author is also critical of Vučić’s announcement that he could seek the position of prime minister after his presidential mandate ends. Rettman portrays this as an attempt to circumvent Serbia’s constitutional limits on presidential terms and compares it with Vladimir Putin’s political maneuvering in Russia.
The analysis concludes by citing polling data on the balance of political forces in Serbia. According to figures cited by Rettman, some surveys show growing support for the student movement, while others continue to place Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) as the country’s leading political force.
For Rettman, however, the issue goes beyond the outcome of any individual poll or election.
If Serbia wants to join the European Union, he argues, it must confront its past, reject the glorification of convicted war criminals and change its political course.
Otherwise, Rettman concludes, the contradiction between the values on which the EU is founded and the Serbia governed by Vučić remains too great for the country to join the Union.
