(BRUSSELS) - The European Union will wait for the chief UN war crimes prosecutor to endorse Serbia's cooperation with his court before moving forward on a key pact on closer ties, an EU diplomat said Tuesday.

EU ambassadors, meeting in Brussels for the last time before the summer break, decided to hold off until former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had been handed over to the tribunal and a clearer assessment could be made.

Brussels and Belgrade signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) in April, but the 27 EU nations vowed not to ratify it until Serbia has demonstrated "full cooperation" with The Hague-based tribunal.

The arrest of Karadzic -- wanted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes over the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia -- has been seen in Brussels as a significant step on Serbia's road to EU membership.

But the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Serge Brammertz, is regarded as a key arbiter in deciding whether that arrest, which happened in Serbia, is enough to turn the page.

The Netherlands, whose government eventually resigned over accusations that Dutch peacekeepers watched on as almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed, and Belgium have notably opposed rewarding Serbia.

They want Karadzic's associate, the Bosnian Serb war-time military chief Ratko Mladic, in detention with him at The Hague.

The diplomat said the EU ambassadors had decided to wait until Karadzic had been transferred to tribunal and after Brammertz had made a trip to Belgrade to assess the extent of Serbia's cooperation.

He said the EU was not expected to make any move before September.

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