The European People’s Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament has strongly condemned the presence of senior Serbian officials and the military honors given at the funeral of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladić, who was convicted of genocide and other war crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ivo Davor Štir, a Croatian member of the European Parliament and the EPP group’s spokesperson for Serbia, said the participation of Serbian officials at the funeral was incompatible with European values and could undermine Serbia’s path toward European Union membership.
“This is in complete contradiction with European values and endangers Serbia’s path to EU membership. There is no place in the European family for those who glorify Ratko Mladić. The EPP Group stands firmly with the victims of genocide and war crimes,” Štir said in a post on X.
The EPP group also published an image from the Srebrenica memorial site carrying a message that the honors given at Mladić’s funeral threaten Serbia’s path toward the EU.
The European Parliament is scheduled to debate Mladić’s funeral and the glorification of war crimes in Serbia, with a resolution expected to follow the debate.
Mladić, the wartime commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, was buried with state and military honors on September 7 at Topčider Cemetery in Belgrade.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2017 after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including responsibility for the Srebrenica genocide and the campaign of terror against civilians in Sarajevo.
The controversy over his funeral has intensified scrutiny of Serbia’s relationship with its wartime past and could add further political pressure to the country’s already difficult EU accession process.
