Manfred Weber (BETAPHOTO/European Parliament/Alain ROLLAND)
The glorification of former Republika Srpska general Ratko Mladic, who recently died while serving a life sentence for genocide and other war crimes, is contrary to European values and undermines confidence in Serbia’s dedication to the values and principles fundamental to the its European path, European People’s Party (EPP) leader Manfred Weber said on Sept. 9.
“That a convicted war criminal was publicly honoured at his funeral, with senior Serbian officials participating, is deeply disturbing. I strongly condemn their presence and the public glorification of Mladić,” Weber wrote on X.
The EPP is Europe’s largest center-right political family of which the ruling Serbian Progressive Party is an associate member.
In his post, Weber – who has led the EPP since 2022 and headed its European Parliament caucus since 2014 – went on to state that “[h]onouring a man convicted of genocide is not an act of reconciliation or remembrance” but rather “a rejection of the responsibility to confront the crimes of the past.”
Weber underlined that Mladic was a convicted war criminal, found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Mladic, the wartime commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, died in the medical unit of the United Nations detention facility in Scheveningen, near The Hague, on Aug. 27, at age 83. He was buried in Belgrade on Sept. 7.
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