EU condemns Serbia’s ministers for attending funeral of war criminal Mladic
EU leaders condemn Serbian officials' presence at Ratko Mladic's funeral as a failure to confront past war crimes.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa have condemned the presence of several senior Serbian officials at the funeral of war criminal Ratko Mladic.
The EU leaders said on Tuesday in identical statements published on X that images of the previous day’s commemoration in Serbia – a candidate for EU membership – were “shocking”.
“The elements of official support and the presence of some senior Serbian officials at the funeral are deeply regrettable,” they said on X. “They demonstrate a failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe’s recent history and contradict the values underpinning Serbia’s path towards the European Union.”
His legacy is linked to the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, when forces under his command captured a Bosniak enclave and systematically killed more than 8,000 men and boys, an atrocity that has been ruled a genocide by a United Nations court.