Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said Tuesday in Belgrade that Serbia could get EU candidate status by the end of the year even if the remaining two fugitives - Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic - are not extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), but the country shows clear political will to arrest them.

At a joint news conference after a meeting with his Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremic, Asselborn reminded of the case of Croatian general Ante Gotovina, saying that Croatia got EU candidate status in October 2005, even though Gotovina was still at large at the time. He noted that the EU assessed there was strong political will in Zagreb to extradite Gotovina to the ICTY.

The high-ranking Luxembourg official also commented on the problem of fake asylum seekers from Serbia, noting that the Serbian government has taken several important measures in the last few weeks, which are already having an effect and of which Luxembourg has taken note. Asselborn said that for Serbia, visa liberalization is an important step toward the EU and that his country will continue to support it.