Serbia's EU Path Fractures as War Criminal's Funeral Exposes Democratic Backsliding

When a state lends its ceremonial weight to the burial of a man convicted of genocide, it speaks a language that transcends diplomacy — and Europe has heard it clearly. Serbia's funeral honors for Ratko Mladic in Belgrade have crystallized what years of quiet concern had only suggested: that a country formally seeking EU membership has been drifting, perhaps decisively, away from the values that membership requires. The question now is not merely whether Serbia belongs in Europe, but whether the EU's long patience with Belgrade has itself become a form of complicity.