The aftermath of the collapse of Yugoslavia hardly needs much repeating, considering the more violent parts of it were on our tellies throughout the 1990s. What’s surprising, however, is the differing fates of the three largest countries to have emerged from the Yugoslav whole: Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia.

Why relevant? Well, because not only have peacekeeping forces been scaled back in Bosnia after 15 years, but today also sees Croatia host European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn as special guests at the final summit of the country’s presidency of the South East European Co-operation Process, while Serbia is currently combining political crises, movements against independence for Kosovo, and Russian interference with – from today – Chairmanship of the Council of Europe. And that’s before you even mention all the uncaptured war criminals running around.

So while Croatia has become a favourite holiday destination for the middle classes (and a halfway-decent football side) with a strong chance of entering the EU within the next few years and Bosnia has been largely forgotten, Serbia shows every sign of being just as mad as ever.

To put Serbia’s Council of Europe chairmanship in some perspective, this is the body that is designed to uphold human rights across the continent and beyond – it, rather than the EU, is the body responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights (not to be confused with the European Court of Justice).

Yet Serbia – the figurehead of Europe-wide human rights for the next six months – is not only still complicit in hiding war criminals from the International Criminal Court, but has also just elected a hard-line nationalist as speaker of their parliament – a hard-line nationalist who only got the job of temporary leader of his party because the party’s president is currently on trial in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

Belgrade 2.0 has a good roundup of reactions to this appointment, as does Fistful. Hell, the Council of Europe itself (much like the EU) has criticised the situation:

“I have learned with consternation of the election of Tomislav Nikolic, member of a political party run by an indicted war criminal, to the post of Speaker of the Serbian Parliament. In this context, I want to recall that co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is not optional, but a legally-binding obligation and a commitment that Serbia undertook when joining the Council of Europe.

I very much regret Mr Nikolic’s first comments concerning the European institutions. In a crucial moment when Serbia needs more than ever to strengthen its co-operation with such institutions to stake its future on democracy, the defence of human rights and the rule of law, the words of the new Speaker sound as a worrying echo of a turbulent past.

For a member state due to take on the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers in two days, Mr Nikolic’s election is a burden on Serbia’s ability to carry out its task.”

Of course, this only happened a few days ago, and to cancel Serbia’s chairing of the Council of Europe on such short notice may well have seemed a bit off. But the thing is, it’s not just that Serbia’s been politically unstable for years, but since the elections back in January it’s been obvious not only that the place isn’t quite right in the head, but also that the nutty nationalists of the nicely named Serbian Radical Party had come out on top in the vote. And let’s face it, if the years since 1991 have taught us anything, its that the last thing the former Yugoslavia needs is more nationalism…

Surely there must have been some way to skip Serbia’s chairmanship? – especially as today also marks Montenegro’s accession to the Council, following its independence from Serbia last year (something to which many Kosovans also, perhaps unsurprisingly, aspire – something the US is currently promoting at the UN).

The difference between Croatia’s post-civil war path and that of Serbia has never been more apparent. Croatia is looking beyond its borders to the international community, aspiring to EU membership, and is doing well; Serbia is still inward-looking and full of petty jealousies, enviously coveting more power and more enforced unity while resenting its minorities (be they Muslims, the Albanians of Kosovo, the Roma, whatever) and building up its anger at Montenegrin independence.

Bar Belarus, Serbia is, in other words, one of Europe’s most unstable and nutty countries – its future path entirely unpredictable, and its violent, genocidal past seemingly not regretted. But for the next six months it’s to be an international symbol of human rights.

You’ve got to love this continent sometimes…

Evening update: Phew – “Serbia’s pro-democracy parties have agreed to form a new power-sharing government, Parliament’s speaker said Friday, an arrangement that would exclude anti-Western ultranationalists who had supported Slobodan Milosevic”