EU must not pay for Kosovo independence with freedom for Mladic and Karadic

12.00.00pm GMT Tue 11th Dec 2007

Reacting to the likelihood of EU support for Kosovo's 'coordinated' declaration of independence against the background of Serbian anger and threats, Liberal Democrat European Justice Spokeswoman, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, said:

"The EU must not allow itself to be blackmailed by Serbia into signing the European association agreement as a sweetener for the loss of Kosovo, without indicted war crimes fugitives Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadic in the Hague. The damning judgement of Hague prosecutor Carla del Ponte that the Serbian government has deliberately failed to deliver Mladic and Karadic to justice cannot be swept aside."

"Rewarding Serbia for holding back from a violent reaction over Kosovo would be, in the week of International Human Rights Day of all times, an insult to the Balkan victims of atrocities. It would retrospectively invalidate the 1999 NATO action to stop ethnic cleansing. Serbia will be a valued candidate for the EU when it finally faces up to the past and accepts international law, not before."