Andrej Plenković took the podium at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly and began diplomatically - with the enlargement of the European Union. South-Eastern Europe, he said, "remains an unfinished part of the European project". A few sentences later it became clear which address the message was meant for.

"Reconciliation becomes possible when responsibility for past crimes is acknowledged and their glorification is rejected. That standard allows no national exceptions," the Croatian prime minister said. Then he spoke the name that has kept coming back in regional news all week.

"Ratko Mladić is a convicted war criminal, responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica, the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust. The military and official honours bestowed on him in Serbia were an insult to his victims and to the verdicts of international courts," Plenković said. The participation of state representatives and the public approval that accompanied the ceremony, he added, are "in complete contradiction with the values of the Union that Serbia wants to join".

Belgrade had its answer ready before the speech. President Aleksandar Vučić recently said there was no one in Europe who hadn't spoken up about the funeral, "as if the funeral could have been avoided, or we should have buried the man in a dog cemetery". According to him, there were ordinary soldiers at the funeral, no great honours, and three or four ministers came to offer condolences. Europeans, Vučić claims, were actually appalled by the scene and by the number of people who turned up. The Hague, he added, acted "extremely immorally", because it knew the man was dying and wouldn't let him die in his own country.

So the same funeral now has two versions. Zagreb talks about military and state honours, Belgrade about ordinary soldiers and ministers who came to offer condolences. But the Srebrenica verdict doesn't depend on which version sounds more convincing in New York - it is final, and that is exactly what Plenković invoked.

The question is what comes next. Croatia is an EU member, and its voice carries weight every time a new chapter needs to be opened. Will Brussels turn this sentence into a condition for Serbia, or will it remain just another Balkan speech in a hall that has heard them all?