SERBIA: President Boris Tadic thanks Croatia for its support in Serbia's EU candidacy bid

Record ID: 861333

  • Title: SERBIA: President Boris Tadic thanks Croatia for its support in Serbia's EU candidacy bid
  • Date: 2nd March 2012
  • Summary: PEOPLE ON STREET CARS ON STREET
  • Embargoed: 17th March 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia, Serbia
  • City:
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6RZI23Y9KJWCRKSW6D7P0SNWF
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  • Story Text: The European Union made Serbia a candidate for membership on Thursday (March 2) in an attempt to promote better government in the western Balkans as the region struggles to emerge from the wars of the 1990s.
    EU leaders took the decision at a summit in Brussels, launching a potentially lengthy process to bring the former Yugoslav republic into the bloc.
    It marks a turnaround for Serbia, once seen as the pariah of Balkans for its central role in wars that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic.
    Serbian President Boris Tadic thanked Croatia for its support for Serbia's EU candidate status.
    "I would like to thank Croatia for the big and warm support we got from it - this is something I want to emphasize. I already thanked President (Ivo) Josipovic and Prime minister (Zoran) Milanovic. This is the way Serbia will treat its neighbours, those who have not yet achieved this stage in the relations with the EU, in the next stages of our negotiation with the EU in order to help speed up their integration process," Tadic said at a news conference in Belgrade.
    Becoming an EU candidate rewards years of political reform and improvements in relations with Kosovo, a former Serbian province, as well as Belgrade's efforts to come to terms with its past by catching war crimes suspects.
    The EU wants to commit Belgrade to the bloc's democratic values, and ensure ethnic tensions do not again spark violence in the region, scene of Europe's most devastating fighting since World War Two in 1990s.
    Croatia last year received the nod to become the EU's 28th member in July 2013. Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move Belgrade still refuses to recognise, is also establishing closer political and trade links with the EU.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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