The EU should send a clear signal after the arrest of Ratko Mladic and give Serbia candidate status as soon as possible, Social Democratic Party of Austria MP in the European Parliament (EP) Hannes Swoboda said Thursday.

The Vice President of the Social Democratic faction pointed out that Mladic's arrest is a personal success for Serbia's social-democratic president Boris Tadic.

This clearly proves that Serbia's incumbent government had a great interest to turn Mladic over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Mladic's arrest is great progress, not only in overcoming the past, but also on the road to the EU, he underlined in a statement.