Serbian dreams of joining EU are mired in a difficult past

BELGRADE, Serbia - An Austrian bank advertisement longer than a soccer pitch wraps tightly around the former interior ministry in Belgrade, giving it a flashy facade masking a darker past still haunting Serbia.

A decade after strongman President Slobodan Milosevic fell in a popular uprising on Oct 5, 2000, the old ministry remains a ruin of the 1999 NATO bombing - evoking both the promise of a better European future and the wounded core of Serbia itself.

Since the overthrow of Milosevic, who supported warring Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia as federal Yugoslavia tore apart, the formerly pariah Balkan country of 7.3 million people has been at peace and embraced a market-style democracy.