SARAJEVO/BELGRADE/BRUSSELS, Sept 11 (BalkanView) – Bosnia and Herzegovina has summoned its military attaché in Serbia for consultations and urged the European Union to consider sanctions against Serbian officials, deepening a diplomatic crisis triggered by Belgrade’s funeral honours for convicted Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić.
Bosnian Defence Minister Zukan Helez said Brigadier Zdenko Vidaković had been called back for consultations because relations between the two countries had been “seriously damaged” by the way Mladić’s funeral was organised.
Helez said the participation of Serbian soldiers and the use of military honours were particularly troubling and raised questions about future bilateral military cooperation.
The move comes after Bosnia expelled Serbia’s military attaché Milan Dulanović and intelligence adviser Danko Maksimović from its embassy in Sarajevo and announced that most Bosnian embassy staff in Belgrade would be withdrawn.
Bosnia also suspended plans to sign a regional memorandum on good-neighbourly relations with Serbia, saying Belgrade had crossed “all red lines.”
The rapid deterioration in ties shows how Mladić’s death has reopened one of the most sensitive unresolved issues in the Western Balkans: how Serbia confronts, or refuses to confront, the legacy of the wars of the 1990s.
FROM FUNERAL TO DIPLOMATIC CRISIS
Mladić died on Aug. 27 while serving a life sentence imposed by an international tribunal for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the 1995 Srebrenica genocide and the siege of Sarajevo.
Thousands attended his funeral in Belgrade on Sept. 7.
Serbian army personnel carried the flag-draped coffin, a military salute was fired, senior ministers attended and Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirije conducted the funeral service.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa called the images from Belgrade “shocking”, saying the official elements of the ceremony demonstrated a failure to confront one of the darkest chapters of recent European history.
Bosnia reacted more forcefully.
Foreign Minister Elmedin Konaković expelled two Serbian officials, began reducing diplomatic representation in Belgrade and announced that Bosnia would not join a planned regional cooperation agreement with Serbia under current conditions.
Helez’s decision to summon the military attaché adds a defence and security dimension to a crisis that had initially centred on diplomacy.
BOSNIA ASKS EU TO CONSIDER SANCTIONS
Konaković has also appealed directly to senior EU officials, calling for targeted sanctions against Serbian officials and institutions involved in the public glorification of Mladić.
He argued that Serbia could not credibly continue towards EU membership while senior officials participated in events honouring a man convicted of genocide.
That demand has not yet translated into EU sanctions, but the debate has shifted significantly.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said this week that Serbia was at a “crossroads” and that Brussels had to assess whether the country remained sincere about its European path.
Kos said she would raise the issue with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and pointed to upcoming EU assessments of enlargement as an opportunity for a broader political discussion.
Her remarks went beyond earlier warnings.
Before the funeral, Kos had described Serbia’s handling of Mladić’s burial as an important test for its accession process.
After the ceremony, the debate moved towards a more fundamental question: whether Serbia’s political direction remains compatible with membership.
EU MEMBERSHIP NOW PART OF THE CRISIS
Serbia has been an EU candidate since 2012 and opened accession negotiations in 2014.
Its progress has already been slowed by disputes over rule of law, democratic standards, Kosovo and alignment with EU foreign policy.
Mladić’s funeral has now placed reconciliation and historical responsibility back at the centre of the accession debate.
EU leaders have made clear that glorification of convicted war criminals conflicts with the political values required from candidate states.
AP reported that senior European officials openly questioned Serbia’s fitness to join the bloc following the funeral.
The issue could therefore become more than symbolic.
Kos has said Serbia risks consequences not only politically but potentially in its access to parts of EU funding if it continues to move away from European standards.
That adds financial leverage to what had until now largely been a dispute over history and political values.
CANADA AND TÜRKİYE JOIN THE CRITICISM
The backlash has also widened beyond the EU.
Canada condemned the glorification of convicted war criminals and said honours for perpetrators of genocide undermine reconciliation and regional stability.
Türkiye separately described attempts to glorify Mladić or reject international court judgments as unacceptable.
Ankara said such behaviour deepened the suffering of victims and damaged efforts to build peace in the Balkans.
That is significant because Türkiye maintains close political and economic relations with both Serbia and Bosnia and has frequently presented itself as a supporter of regional stability.
International criticism therefore now extends beyond traditional Western pressure on Belgrade.
SERBIA PUSHES BACK
President Aleksandar Vučić has defended Serbia against what he portrays as selective international criticism.
He said people in Serbia were tired of being humiliated and argued that Serbs had been disproportionately prosecuted for crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars.
That narrative resonates strongly with nationalist voters.
But it also illustrates the widening gap between Serbia’s domestic political discourse and the expectations of Brussels.
Many Serbian nationalists consider Mladić a wartime defender rather than a criminal, despite the final judgments of international courts.
That split was visible at the funeral, where thousands attended and nationalist symbols were prominent.
It has continued in local politics.
Municipal assemblies in several Serbian cities have held minutes of silence for Mladić, prompting opposition councillors in some places to walk out.
The dispute therefore extends beyond the government in Belgrade.
It has become part of a broader domestic battle over historical memory and Serbian national identity.
BOSNIA FEARS NORMALISATION OF GLORIFICATION
For Bosnia, the central concern is not simply the funeral itself but what it represents.
Bosnian officials argue that military honours and the presence of senior state officials normalise the public rehabilitation of figures convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The United Nations has also expressed concern.
UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Chaloka Beyani criticised public expressions of genocide denial and the glorification of Mladić and reiterated that international courts conclusively established that genocide was committed in Srebrenica.
That intervention matters because the dispute is not over an unresolved legal question.
The judgments against Mladić are final.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted him in 2017, and the verdict was upheld on appeal in 2021.
The controversy therefore concerns political interpretation of settled judicial findings.
KOSOVO SEES A BROADER PATTERN
Kosovo has also strongly condemned the funeral.
Acting Kosovo official Donika Gërvalla described the military and state honours as an insult to victims and an act of political rehabilitation of a criminal ideology.
Pristina sees the controversy through its own wartime experience with Serbian forces in 1998-99.
The Kosovo government has repeatedly argued that Serbia has failed to distance itself from nationalist narratives linked to the conflicts of the 1990s.
For Kosovo, therefore, the Mladić funeral is not an isolated Bosnian issue but part of a wider question about Serbia’s relationship with its recent past.
THE REGIONAL IMPACT
The diplomatic fallout risks spreading beyond Bosnia and Serbia.
Bosnia’s decision to suspend participation in a regional cooperation memorandum directly affects Western Balkan initiatives intended to improve political and economic ties.
If the dispute escalates, it could also complicate regional defence cooperation, cross-border initiatives and EU-backed reconciliation programmes.
For years, Brussels has promoted the idea that regional cooperation should prepare the Western Balkans for eventual EU membership.
The Mladić crisis exposes how fragile that process remains when historical disputes collide with domestic politics.
More than three decades after the Bosnian war, competing interpretations of the conflict remain politically powerful.
In Bosnia, Mladić is overwhelmingly seen as one of the principal architects of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
In parts of Serbia and Republika Srpska, he continues to be regarded as a military hero.
Those two narratives remain fundamentally irreconcilable.
THE QUESTION NOW FACING BRUSSELS
The key question is no longer whether the funeral damaged Serbia’s image.
It clearly did.
The more consequential question is whether Brussels is prepared to attach concrete consequences to Serbia’s handling of the event.
The EU has several options.
It could slow accession negotiations further, freeze or condition funding, restrict political engagement or support targeted sanctions such as those requested by Bosnia.
But Brussels also has strategic reasons to keep Serbia engaged.
Serbia is the largest country in the Western Balkans, sits at the centre of regional transport and energy networks and remains important to EU policy on migration, security and Kosovo.
That creates a familiar dilemma.
Applying too little pressure risks making EU values appear negotiable.
Applying too much could push Belgrade closer to Russia or deepen nationalist resentment.
The funeral has therefore become something much larger than a dispute over one historical figure.
It is now a test of Serbia’s European orientation, Bosnia’s willingness to defend the memory of the victims, and the EU’s ability to enforce the standards it demands from candidate countries.
Three decades after Srebrenica, the region is again confronting a question it has never fully resolved: Can the Western Balkans build a common European future without first agreeing on the basic facts of their recent past?