Sinking the flagship

摘要

Angela merkel, the German chancel-lor, has just holed Serbia's flagship foreign policy below the water line. For the past year, the country's leaders have been doing everything they can to win candidate status to the European Union in December, with the aim of going to the country in the spring brandishing their achievement. To that end, they secured the arrest of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general wanted by the un's Yugoslav war-crimes tribunal. They have passed eu-compatible laws and entered into an eu-sponsored dialogue with the leaders of Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008. So far, so good.