BRUSSELS — The European Union’s most senior leaders have voiced profound shock and condemnation after Serbian authorities facilitated a state-tinged hero’s funeral for Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb war criminal who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide and multiple war crimes. The controversial ceremony has thrown into serious question Serbia’s long-stated ambition to join the 27-nation bloc, reopening deep divides over the Balkan nation’s commitment to European democratic and historical values.
Mladic, infamously known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that left more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys dead — the first proven genocide on European soil since World War II — was interred in central Belgrade on Monday. The ceremony included full military honors: active-duty Serbian army soldiers carried his flag-draped casket through the cemetery, while the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, personally led the funeral service. Multiple sitting Serbian government ministers were in attendance, alongside high-profile guests including Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik and Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko.
While populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic — himself a former extremist nationalist who backed Serbian expansionist policies during the 1990s Yugoslav wars — opted not to attend the ceremony, his son Danilo Vucic was present as a representative of the administration. Vucic has framed the public turnout and official backing for the funeral as a natural “emotional outpouring” for a figure still widely viewed as a national hero among conservative segments of the Serbian population. Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic, who appeared alongside Mladic’s family during the service, claimed the state’s only role was to provide security to ensure the event proceeded in an orderly fashion, with all ceremonial arrangements handled by Mladic’s family.
The event comes as Vucic navigates a precarious political balancing act: he faces early parliamentary elections expected to take place within months, and relies on the support of hardline nationalist voters who broadly admire Mladic, while still clinging to Serbia’s official goal of EU accession. Even before the funeral took place, the EU signaled the ceremony would be a critical test of Belgrade’s alignment with bloc values. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos canceled a planned visit to Serbia last week, stating explicitly that any public glorification of Mladic would be irreconcilable with the standards required for EU membership.
In synchronized statements released via social media on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa condemned the event, saying “The images from Ratko Mladic’s funeral yesterday in Belgrade were shocking. The elements of official support and the presence of some senior Serbian officials at the funeral are deeply regrettable. 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.”
When asked about potential consequences for Serbia’s membership bid, a spokesperson for von der Leyen only confirmed that leadership is currently reviewing the situation, with no further details available. The EU is set to release its annual enlargement progress report for candidate countries in late October or early November, which will outline both progress made and ongoing deficiencies for Serbia. Von der Leyen is scheduled to tour the Western Balkans ahead of the report’s release, but no dates or agenda for a potential stop in Belgrade have been confirmed.
Serbia’s membership prospects were already in a fragile state before the funeral, with the bloc already raising serious concerns about democratic backsliding and electoral irregularities. In April, Kos warned Belgrade that it could lose access to as much as 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in pre-accession EU funds over fraud allegations connected to recent municipal elections.
The outcome of this controversy will also depend heavily on internal EU politics. Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), a nationalist-populist party, maintains close formal ties to the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political grouping in the EU that unites center-right parties from across the bloc. Critics have long accused the EPP of shielding Vucic from consequences for his authoritarian turn. The EPP’s relationship with illiberal nationalist parties has precedent: for years the grouping tolerated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party amid widespread concerns over democratic erosion, only eventually suspending Fidesz in 2019, before the party fully quit the bloc in 2021.
Von der Leyen herself is a senior EPP member, as are half of her college of commissioners and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. She has avoided harsh public criticism of Vucic in the past. But pressure is now mounting on the EPP to take a harder line. “It is high time for the EPP to stop acting as a safe haven for the SNS party, which openly celebrates convicted war criminals and rolls out the red carpet for the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’,” Slovenian Green MEP Vladimir Prebilic said last week.