The European Union moved closer to starting membership talks with Serbia on Wednesday but its top enlargement official said that further progress depended on the arrest of remaining war crime fugitives and on key reforms.

"Top priority must continue to be given to ... the successful tracking and arrest of Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic," Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule said after handing over a questionnaire about Serbia's readiness to join the bloc to Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic.

The questionnaire is necessary for the bloc to decide whether to grant candidate status to an applicant country.

Cvetkovic said answers to the document, containing 2,483 questions, would be prepared by the end of January, "aiming that, by the end of 2011, we receive candidate status".

EU governments want Belgrade to arrest Mladic, a Bosnian Serb wartime commander indicted for the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, and Hadzic, a leader of Serbs in Croatia during the 1991-1995 war there, and hand them over to the UN war crimes tribunal.

Top Serbian officials have repeatedly said the country's law enforcement and intelligence agencies are doing everything possible to find the two fugitives.

"We have investigative activities every day and I believe this will be resolved within a reasonable period of time," President Boris Tadic said during a visit to neighbouring Croatia on Wednesday.

Developments around Mladic are particularly watched in the Netherlands, an EU member that had insisted on close monitoring of efforts to capture him.

[related articles] Dutch troops were protecting a United Nations safe haven for civilians in Srebrenica in July 1995 when it was overrun by Serb troops commanded by Mladic. Around 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in the next few days.

Fule said Belgrade must also reform its administration and judiciary, and step up the fight against organised crime, corruption, nepotism and red tape.

Earlier this year EU foreign ministers agreed to ask the bloc's executive commission for an opinion on launching entry talks with Serbia.

Belgrade has gained more support for its EU bid since agreeing in July to negotiate with its former province of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, bowing to demands for better regional cooperation.

Of the former Yugoslav republics, Slovenia is already in the EU and euro zone and Croatia hopes to join in the next couple of years, while Macedonia and Montenegro are also ahead of Belgrade in the integration process.
 

(Source: Reuters)