Serbia now candidate for EU

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders Thursday formally made Serbia a candidate for membership in the bloc in a turnaround for a country considered a pariah just over a decade ago.

A statement by EU President Herman Van Rompuy said the bloc agreed to grant Serbia the status of candidate country.

Serbia had been widely expected to get EU candidacy in December after it captured two top war-crimes suspects but was disappointed when Germany delayed the move, saying it wanted to see more progress in talks with Kosovo.

Serbia spent much of the 1990s ostracized and isolated from the EU after its thenPresident Slobodan Milosevic started the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia to prevent a crackdown on ethnic Albanians.

EU foreign ministers recommended earlier this week that Serbia be granted the coveted status after saying it had fulfilled conditions set by the 27-nation bloc.

The bloc’s leaders routinely affirm such ministerial decisions.

The only holdout during the ministerial meeting was Romania, whose foreign minister demanded that Belgrade do more for its Romanian minority.

But Romanian President Traian Basescu said Thursday that the issue had been resolved.

“Serbia is already in,” he told journalists as he arrived for the summit.

Candidate status is an initial step on the road to EU membership.

Belgrade will still probably have to wait about a year to open actual accession negotiations, which can then drag on for up to a decade.

The European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee said Thursday that accession negotiations with Serbia should start soon.

Kosovo, which many Serbs consider the cradle of their statehood and religion, came under international control after the 1999 war during which NATO forces ejected Milosevic’s troops.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Serbia refuses to recognize it.