The funeral of convicted Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic has shocked Brussels, with thousands turning out to honour a man found responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the Yugoslav wars.

Around 16,000 people attended the funeral procession in Belgrade on September 7, according to the Archive of Public Meetings.

Mladic, who died on August 27 aged 84 while serving a life sentence in The Hague, was convicted of genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, as well as other crimes committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on September 8 that images from the funeral were "shocking", especially the presence of senior Serbian officials.

In fact, most top politicians chose to stay away.

President Aleksandar Vucic did not attend, deciding to host an Uzbek delegation instead. But his son Danilo was there, alongside a few ministers, including Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic and Justice Minister Nenad Vujic.

A divided memory

As difficult as it may be for EU leaders to understand, having been shaped by the view that Serbia committed the worst atrocities in Europe since the Second World War, Mladic remains a hero to many.

The funeral followed days of public tributes to the former general. Murals of Mladic were painted across the capital, while a huge banner bearing his face was unfurled at the city's main football derby between Red Star Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade, accompanied by chants of his name.

How can one understand this? Perhaps it reflects a deeply rooted belief that Serbia and Serbs were treated as the principal perpetrators of the Yugoslav wars, while crimes committed by other sides received less attention.

In response to criticism from former Croatian prime minister Jadranka Kosor, who said the EU should suspend Serbia’s accession negotiations, Bojana Selakovic, coordinator of the National Convention on the European Union, engaged in familiar whataboutery of Serbian politicians by highlighting Croatia’s own troubled relationship with its wartime past.

“Croatia should have received punitive measures from the European Union long ago,” she wrote on X.  

Many Serbs see the wars through the experience of a defeated population whose version of events was largely written by the victors and by international institutions in which they had little influence. They regard the ICTY as biased against them, arguing that it failed to adequately address crimes committed by Croat, Bosniak and Kosovo Albanian forces.

That perception has helped sustain the view of Mladic as a defender of Serbs rather than a perpetrator of crimes.

But how does one get around the fact that Mladic was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents at Srebrenica?

Thousands of civilians were killed, expelled or subjected to abuses by forces on all sides of the Yugoslav wars. Srebrenica stands apart in its scale: more than 8,000 unarmed Bosniak men and boys were killed there in July 1995.

The massacre took place under Mladic's command, and his responsibility for it was upheld by the ICTY.

The tension between the international legal record and a Serbian sense of victimhood over how it has been treated by the media and international institutions remains central to the way the country's wartime past is remembered.

Nevertheless, there are those in Serbia who have condemned the treatment of Mladic.

Green-Left Front lawmaker Dobrica Veselinovic called the tributes a source of national shame, while Movement of Free Citizens MP Vladimir Pajic criticised the decision to give Mladic state and church honours.

State distances itself

Amid the EU backlash to the funeral, Serbian officials have half-heartedly sought to portray it as a family matter.

Justice Minister Vujic said the former general had been buried with military honours at the request of his family, while the state had merely ensured public safety.

Yet the ceremony had several official and institutional elements.

Mladic's remains were returned to Serbia from The Hague aboard a Serbian government plane. His coffin, draped in the Serbian flag, was carried from the aircraft by Serbian soldiers and received by family members and government officials.

Mladic was buried at Belgrade's Topcider cemetery in a coffin covered with the flags of Serbia and Republika Srpska, and his funeral service was conducted by Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Porfirije.

Porfirije said many Serbs viewed Mladic as a soldier who had defended their people during the Bosnian war, while also acknowledging the suffering and trauma caused by the conflict.

Final nail in the coffin?

The funeral comes as Serbia's accession process has stalled, with Serbia having opened no new negotiating cluster since 2021.

In July, eight EU member states — Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden — blocked Serbia from opening Cluster 3, which covers competitiveness and inclusive growth.

The European Commission has backed opening the cluster, while opponents cite concerns over the rule of law, Serbia's alignment with EU foreign policy and sanctions on Russia.

The stalemate has left Serbia, the largest economy in the Western Balkans, falling behind some other EU candidates, particularly Montenegro, which has advanced much further in its accession negotiations.

The Mladic funeral adds another source of friction to an accession process already held back by political disputes, including Serbia's refusal to fully align with EU sanctions on Russia.

For Serbia, the controversy touches on a bigger question that remains unresolved more than three decades after Yugoslavia began to break apart: whether acknowledgement of crimes committed by Serb forces can coexist with recognition of crimes against Serbs and the sense of collective victimhood that continues to shape public memory.

That divide remains a major obstacle to reconciliation in the region — and an inconvenience for Serbia’s leadership as it tries to revive an EU accession process in which it is already losing ground to its smaller neighbours.