Croatia’s foreign minister, Miro Kovac, said this week that Croatia would continue to block Serbia’s EU membership negotiations, and hinted at other sanctions, unless Serbia changes its laws to eliminate the practice of universal jurisdiction for war crimes. The threats echoed statements Kovac and other Croatian officials have been making for some time, despite the fact that German chancellor Angela Merkel forced Kovac to unblock Serbia’s accession process in June.
Minister Kovac further threatened that any attempts by Serbia to prosecute Croats for war crimes would be met with retaliation.
“I find it almost impossible that the Serbian government would have the courage to do such a thing (arrest Croatian citizens suspected of war crimes), because it would have to count on countermeasures. One of these measures is the absolute blockade of the negotiations in the EU accession process,” Kovac stressed.
He also said that any indictments that Serbia might activate “will also be blocked.”
The principle of universal jurisdiction is widely accepted by European states, and explicitly established in the laws of many EU member states, including Croatia.
On Friday, former Croatian president Ivo Josipovic wrote an open letter to current president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, published on a local news site, calling for an end to the “hysteria” and bellicose rhetoric the current administration has directed at Serbia.
