STRATEGIC EUROPEANIZATION OF SERBIA AND THE EU IMPACT: THE CASE OF COOPERATION WITH INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

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From the very beginning, the majority of Serbs have evaluated the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) both as anti-Serb and as an instrument created to punish Serbs only. This feeling created a strong resistance among them against cooperation with the Tribunal. Furthermore, the pressure from the European Union and the United States of America as well as the threats on Serbs to extradite their war heroes, revived the historic Serbian anti-West victim based feelings. However, since war-thorn Serbia was so humiliated and isolated both politically and economically that Serbs couldn t figure out any other alternative then to build institutional relations with the EU in order to get rid of this desperate situation and return back to Europe. Nevertheless, cooperation with the ICTY was put forward by the EU as a precise and indispensable condition for even the initiation of such relations. Therefore, both the Serbian public s and politicians initial consistency on noncooperation started to change. Besides, in accordance with the rational choice institutionalists assumptions, the building of institutional relations with the EU had even increased EU s impact capacity on Serbia. Ultimately, magnetic and transformative impact of the EU overcame and successfully convinced Serbia to extradite its most important leaders and former war heroes to The Hague.

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Serbia , European Union , Europeanization , International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia , Strategic Europeanization

Ege Strategic Research Journal

67

Ege Strategic Research Journal