By Adam Tanner BELGRADE, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Ireland's "yes" vote to an EU reform treaty may give hope to Balkan nations in their tortuous path to membership but recent reminders of ethnic divisions and xenophobia in the region may also pose new hurdles. Referendum results on Saturday showed more than two-thirds of Irish voters backed the European Union's Lisbon treaty, which streamlines the running of the 27-nation bloc and was seen as a step to set its house in order before it could add new members. Many countries want to join the group, including the six relatively poor countries of the Balkans, but all must first meet a set of rigorous economic, political and social standards. So far Croatia is well on the way towards membership, Montenegro and Albania have applied, and Serbia and Bosnia hope to do so soon. Macedonia's hopes have been set back by a flare-up of ethnic tension. "A 'yes' in the Irish referendum ... will make the internal (EU) debate at ease, I would say, which is good for the Balkans," one EU official said before the result was known. But just when the outlook should be improving, sentiment is turning darker, affected by the slow pace of change, the dismal economy and recent reminders of the region's violent past. Incidents that have alarmed Balkan watchers include the fatal beating of a French soccer fan last month at a busy Belgrade cafe, and the government cancellation of a gay parade in the city after right-wing groups threatened violence. Last week Bosnia's Serb Republic threatened to pull out of national government institutions as the split between Bosnia's two administrative halves along wartime ethnic lines widened. Foreign governments have called a special conference in Sarajevo next Friday to deal with the issue. Bosnia has received more than $14 billion in aid since its 1992-95 war, which killed 100,000 in Europe's worst fighting since World War Two. SERBIAN FRUSTRATION Serbian leaders, in particular, are frustrated by the setbacks. "The fight against violence is our top priority, it is more important than anything, including European integration," President Boris Tadic told reporters on Thursday. "I see an unbroken thread between the violence which happened in the 1990s ... and the constant search for enemies in society." Serbia enjoyed robust economic growth and elected a new pro-Western government in 2008. But in the past year the economy has fallen into recession, with a 23 percent devaluation in the currency and the loss of more than 150,000 jobs. Although their hoped-for EU membership is many years away, citizens of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro are expected to gain visa-free travel to the EU in January, a privilege once enjoyed by Yugoslavs and lost in the 1990s. The gay pride rally and xenophobic incidents therefore come at a "very sensitive" time for Serbia, said Judy Batt, a expert on EU-Balkan ties at the University of Birmingham. She said that with declining patience about the prospects of EU integration, "I think there are very strong reasons to worry a lot about the social impacts of the recession". In Macedonia, ethnic tensions have flared since the publication of a government-funded encyclopedia which offended local ethnic Albanians, who make up a quarter of the country's population, as well as those in neighbouring Kosovo and Albania. Ethnic Albanians briefly clashed with Macedonians in 2001 before the international community brokered a peace deal. One diplomat in Skopje said the tensions could derail Macedonia's efforts to join NATO and receive a date to start membership talks with the EU. A long dispute with Greece over Macedonia's name has been the main obstacle to date. Ethnic tension "is completely undermining the prospects of Macedonia for making the next step into the direction of becoming a European Union country," said Vladimir Milcin, executive director of the Open Society Institute in Macedonia. "Forces that are basically trying by any means to keep the region out of the European Union are still very powerful." He said he was referring to nationalist forces, some of which would prefer closer ties to Russia than to the EU. Despite civil rights and judicial reform in the Balkans, cooperation with the international war crimes court for former Yugoslavia remains an acid test of readiness for European integration. Serbia's biggest hurdle is its failure to hand over Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic to the tribunal in The Hague. Taken together, the images of countries which want to convince the EU to take them on board are at risk. "Our image, the image of Serbia, is poor," said Zivorad Kovacevic, a former Belgrade mayor who is president of the policy group European Movement in Serbia. "This is just one reason more for those in the West who have never really believed that Serbia had recovered...but that this is, basically, the same Serbia from (strongman Slobodan) Milosevic's time." EU integration would not be achieved just by marketing, lobbying and propaganda, he said. "You have to have a foothold in real changes." (Additional reporting by Kole Casule in Skopje, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Albania biology students attach an electronic transmitter chip onto a sea turtle's body, to locate its movements as part of a study of its breeding habits, at Patok Beach in northwestern ...
