Serbia's arrest of Mladic "might be a very strong turning point" for the Serbia-EU thing, someone wrote in a comment on GV yesterday.

It usually horrifies me to imagine a similar scenario for Ukraine, but I do get carried away sometimes.

First, half a decade of war. Then, business as usual, sort of, and also catching some of the war criminals, at a rather leisurely pace, leaving the most odious ones for dessert - at which point everyone around is so tired of waiting that they let you in without even lifting their heads to look at you. Something like that. War as the EU's entrance fee, more or less.

(There's the Russia factor, of course: Russia may be happy or unhappy about Serbia joining the EU - or both - but who cares.)

I'm so happy Ukraine has managed to stay sane and peaceful over the past two decades, but I do wonder sometimes what we have to do to get to our own "strong turning point" - or at least to have them allow us to travel to Europe visa-free, the way they allowed Serbian citizens a year and a half ago...