EU sleepwalking to ethnic WAR IN EUROPE – Milosevic would be proud, says Ashdown
THE EUROPEAN UNION could face renewed conflict in the Balkans if Bosnia-Herzegovina remains isolated as neighbouring countries are allowed into the bloc, Lord Ashdown warned.
By AURORA BOSOTTI
Express.co.ukThu, May 24, 2018
During the 1990s the Balkans were involved in a series of ethnically motivated wars which unleashed chaos across the region leaving at least 130,000 people dead.
Lord Ashdown warned the European Union is “sleepwalking” into another conflict with its plans to welcome Serbia into its midst without contingency plans to avoid the isolation of neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The peer suggested that allowing Serbia to join through the normal accession process could delay reforms needed in Bosnia and ultimately turn the European country into a target for Turkey and Russia who could back different groups in the country.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Ashdown said: “Serbia is now at the front rank of accession to the European Union.
“Then every Serb in Bosnia-Herzegovina will have a second passport and they will be able to travel so absolutely no interest at all in the future reform of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
“What that means is that the only people left out, isolated, surrounded by their enemies are the Bosniac Muslims. That is exactly the situation of 1992.
“The European Union, in its ignorance backed up by the Western powers, is now inadvertently delivering the plans of Slobodan Milošević, Franjo Tuđman, Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić.”
The EU is moving ahead with the plans as it plots to absorb Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina by 2025 but geographical disputes remain an unresolved issue as a legacy of the region’s past which was torn apart by war in the 1990s.
Lord Ashdown continued: “I don’t think the Muslims will ever allow themselves as in 1992 to be isolated and surrounded by their enemies and with no future in Europe.
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