Brussels-based correspondent and columnist, Augustin Palokaj, remarks that last Friday, on the anniversary of Srebrenica massacre, leaders from the Balkans were taking part in a conference in Dubrovnik aimed at the region’s EU integration. Serbian Foreign Minister, Ivica Dacic, failed to condemn the Srebrenica atrocities in his address and instead focused on what the EU should do to sanction its member states which do not respect European values. At the time when Dacic is taking part in the Dubrovnik meeting, writes Palokaj, Serbs in Mitrovica, under the guidance from Belgrade, continue work on constructing a park on the city’s main bridge. “It is possible to build a bridge on a park but not a park on the bridge and the aim of this park is division not unification”, says Palokaj.

Three years after the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue that has many times been hailed as historic, Mitrovica remains a divided city with barricades while the EU has neither the interest nor the capacity to deal with the past and urges the regional countries to look to the future. “But victims from Srebrenica, the missing from Vukovar and Kosovo, and the division of Mitrovica don’t let us forget the past so easily because it still is the present for many people. One day, very soon, the EU could call the park on River Iber in Mitrovica a thing of the past and do nothing to remove it”, writes Palokaj.

Palokaj admits that EU’s call to overcome the war legacies should be considered as valid as the EU itself was built on such principles. However, this cannot be done by insisting on forgetting the past entirely. “We should deal with the past so that it does not become an obstacle for the future of the region but we should insist on justice without which any peace and stability is only a political illusion but not a reality”, concludes Palokaj.