2006年VOA标准英语-EU Suspends Talks With Serbia Over Mladic

By Lisa Bryant
Paris
03 May 2006

 
A man pushes a cart filled with collected cardboard boxes past posters of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic
  
The European Union has suspended talks on closer ties with Serbia, after Belgrade failed to hand over a key war crimes suspect.  The EU move comes at a critical time for Serbia.

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In a statement from Brussels, European Enlargement Commissioner¹ Olli Rehn says it is "disappointing" that Serbia has failed to locate, arrest, and transfer war-crimes suspect Ratko Mladic to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.

Mladic is wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Serbia failed to meet a Sunday EU deadline to detain Mladic.  As a result, Brussels has suspended talks with Belgrade that may have led to a special agreement and, down the line, possible EU membership.

A key negotiator in the talks, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus resigned following the EU announcement. 

Every Balkan country except Bosnia and Serbia has such a special EU agreement that provides closer political and economic ties.

Serbia wants such an agreement as well, says Katinka Barysch, an EU enlargement expert at the Center for European Reform in London. 

"They have a couple of very difficult questions coming up this year, the final status negotiations² in Kosovo, and there is a referendum coming up in Montenegro, which might split the current federation³ of Serbia-Montenegro," she said.  "So the Balkan countries generally believe that in order to overcome all these tricky⁴ questions of nationalities and boundaries they need to have a common European destiny."

Barysch believes Europe is right to take a tough line with Serbia.  For one thing, the European Union is only allowed to negotiate agreements with countries that are democratic and uphold human rights, and Serbia's failure to hand over Mladic poses a critical problem.

Barysch says Brussels has been enormously successful at forcing other Eastern European countries to adopt reforms in the past.

"You only have to look at countries that have joined the European Union in 2004," she added.  "They generally have very well functioning democracies.  The objective of EU accession served as a real anchor for the democratization process and also for economic reforms."

Barysch says that when the European Union has been less tough, it has been less successful.  That is the case of EU candidate countries Romania and Bulgaria, which have both been slow to implement⁵ economic and political reforms.

1 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

2 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

3 federation   

n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会

参考例句：

• It is a federation of 10 regional unions.它是由十个地方工会结合成的联合会。
• Mr.Putin was inaugurated as the President of the Russian Federation.普京正式就任俄罗斯联邦总统。

4 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

5 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。