Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Serbia will probably apply for candidate status to join the European Union by the end of this year, Milica Delevic, head of country’s EU integration office, said today.

“We have done a great deal of work when you compare to last year, a great deal of laws were adopted that adhere to EU standards,” Delevic said by phone today. She also said that Serbia is still far from accession and will next year focus on implementing the laws.

After the end of the Balkan wars in 1999 and the ouster of former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, Serbia’s pro-Europe authorities sought to improve relations with the west, making EU membership a strategic goal. Serbia has already signed an interim trade pact with the EU and the Stabilization and Association agreement, key steps toward full membership.

The EU has repeatedly told Serbia that both agreements will remain frozen and the accession bid slowed until Serbian authorities arrest two remaining war-crimes fugitives, the former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, the wartime leader of Serbs in Croatia.

Serbian Foreign Affairs Minister Vuk Jeremic, who spoke yesterday after meeting Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, said that the government in Belgrade laid out “the basic groundwork” for submitting the application for the EU candidacy. “We have plans to do it before the end of this year,” he said, according to a B92 TV report today.

The report quoted Rehn as saying that full cooperation of Serbia with the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague remains a necessary condition for moving forward with the EU accession process.

To contact the reporter on this story: Aleksandra Nenadovic in Belgrade at anenadovic@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 6, 2009 07:13 EST