Dutch agree to unfreeze Serbia trade deal

Tuesday 08 December 2009

After over a year of resistance, the Dutch government has agreed to unfreeze a key EU trade accord with Serbia, boosting that country's chances of EU membership.

The Netherlands had resisted approving the deal because of what it said was Serbia's non-cooperation with the Yugoslavian war crimes tribunal in the Hague. In particular, The Netherlands wants Serbia to arrest Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic.

Mladic is charged with masterminding the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which 7,000 men and boys under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers were murdered.

Last week, the tribunal's chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz issued a report stating Serbia's cooperation with his office had 'continued to progress', allowing the Netherlands to soften its stand.

Arrests

But Brammertz pointed out that Serbia had still not tracked down and arrested Mladic and former Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic.

The EU and Serbia signed the trade deal last year.

While some countries wanted to ratify the entire accord immediately, Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen managed to convince them not to, the NRC reported. This would keep the pressure on Serbia for several more months, he said.

'We will look if we can rafify the entire treaty in June,' the minister told news agency ANP. 'To do that, the chief prosecutor must at least say the Serbian government is doing all it can to track down the two war criminals.'

© DutchNews.nl

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