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The two aging, angry men are probably the most wanted fugitives in the world. And yesterday, it became clear that Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, missing for almost 12 years, have also become the biggest impediments to the integration of Europe.

They may be hiding in plain sight in a circle of hilly villages in southern Bosnia. Or they could be here in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, kept behind shuttered windows on the edge of town by their many loyal supporters.

Whatever the case, United Nations war-crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told the European Union parliament in an angry, final statement yesterday that a decade-long search by the governments of Serbia and Bosnia has failed to produce either Mr. Karadzic or his deputy, General Mladic, even though she is certain that both are living comfortably in the Balkans, with Gen. Mladic "definitely" in Serbia.

This, she said, is a legitimate reason for preventing these Balkan nations from making the transition toward EU membership, denying them the trade relations, aid payments and job opportunities that have rescued other poor European countries from instability. By blocking Serbia's path to membership, which entails stabilizing the economy and reducing corruption, the EU would be left with what is essentially an isolated rogue state in its centre.

"It is not possible that after 13 or 14 years Mladic and Karadzic are still at large," Ms. Del Ponte said. "The European Union should stand firm: no signature [on Serbia's membership proposal] without the fugitives in [court], in particular Ratko Mladic."

Serbian leaders said they took her ultimatum seriously, and vowed to find the two men and hand them over by the end of this year. However, such promises have been made in the past, with no results so far.

Mr. Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader known in the 1990s for his flamboyant hairstyle and his vision of an ethnically pure Serbian homeland, has been wanted since 1996 by the United Nations on charges of genocide and other war crimes. As the self-declared president of a "Serbian republic" in Bosnia, he ordered the killing, brutal imprisonment and expulsion of tens of thousands of Muslims.

It was Gen. Mladic who carried out those orders, laying siege to Sarajevo and overseeing atrocities that culminated in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which as many as 8,000 men and boys were systematically killed.

After a U.S.-brokered peace agreement ended the war in 1996, Mr. Karadzic became a fugitive. In 1999, Ms. Del Ponte, a Swiss judge, became chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. On her office wall, she hung posters of the three most sought-after war criminals: former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Mr. Karadzic and Gen. Mladic. Only Mr. Milosevic, who died in jail last year, has been brought to trial.

On Monday, she will issue her final report, which is sure to condemn Serbia for its failure to hand over the fugitives, an act that has long been considered a basic prerequisite to the country's inclusion in the sought-after club of potential EU members.

This week, she made her final visit to Serbia and issued the country's government an ultimatum: If the two suspects are not handed over to her tribunal by the time she leaves office on Dec. 10, Serbia's chances of entering the EU will be jeopardized.

The war-crimes tribunal, based in the Hague, is supposed to stop taking new prosecutions next year, so time is running out for Ms. Del Ponte's mission.

According to European diplomats here, Ms. Del Ponte's threat probably carries weight, as the EU, which is now assuming the job of searching for the fugitives, has said explicitly that Serbia's and Bosnia's road map to EU membership is dependent on their apprehending Gen. Mladic and Mr. Karadzic, and also on a resolution of the status of Kosovo, which will also be subject to a final UN report on Dec. 10.

Serbian officials are certainly taking it seriously. "The accused are not in the tribunal because they're hiding very well, and they are not accessible to our state agencies," said Rasim Ljajic, the Serbian minister responsible for the UN war-crimes tribunal. He added: "Our aim is not to convince someone that war-crimes suspects are not here, but to convince everyone that we are doing all we can to locate them and hand them over to the tribunal as soon as possible."

The stakes are fairly high for the Serbian leaders. While some Serbs still see the two men as war heroes, Serbia's exclusion from the strong European economy is costing people their livelihoods. Unemployment is extremely high, wages are among the lowest in Europe and Serbia's currency, the dinar, has been volatile; yesterday, the country's central bank raised rates in a bid to slow dangerous levels of inflation.

On Nov. 7, Serbia finalized a Stabilization and Association Agreement, the first step toward EU membership, outlining the reforms that will be undertaken to become a full member of the 27-state federation. Ms. Del Ponte's speech today was intended to persuade the union not to sign the agreement, a step that is almost certain to be followed by most nations, diplomats said.

"What I am concerned about is that [Gen. Mladic] comes to justice either now, or in January, or in February, but before the signature, because if we lose this leverage it will never happen," she told reporters. "Mladic is there, is in Serbia; all the evidence collected by national authorities proves that he is there."

Theories about the two men abound in Serbia. Some well-informed observers say that Gen. Mladic is in the hands of Serbia's security forces, and is being used as a pawn in talks over the status of Kosovo. Others suggest that Mr. Karadzic may have signed a deal with the United States in the 1990s that granted him immunity from prosecution in exchange for accepting the 1996 Dayton Accord, which ended the Bosnian war in an awkward compromise.

dsaunders@globeandmail.com