A majority of MPs want new foreign minister Uri Rosenthal to continue resisting Serbia’s efforts to join the EU until it cooperates fully with the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, the NRC reports on Wednesday.

Outgoing foreign minister Maxime Verhagen spent his last morning in the job debating the issue with MPs. The opposition parties plus anti-Islam PVV support a motion calling for no membership for Serbia.
Verhagen has always resisted efforts to start membership negotiations with Serbia. EU ministers are due to discuss the issue on October 25.
Earlier, the Volkskrant reported that Belgium, which currently holds the rotating chairmanship, wants to avoid a confrontation with the Netherlands over Serbia’s membership.
Majority
Verhagen told MPs earlier this week that the decision to start talks with Serbia can be taken by majority decision. It would be the first time EU member states had approved admission talks without the full backing of all countries.
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.