Bosnia and Herzegovina

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Helic]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the political and security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords who are participating today and acknowledge the considerable expertise and experience they bring to this debate. It is the dream team.

There are moments in international affairs when the distance between what Governments say and what they do becomes impossible to ignore. I believe we have reached such a moment with our policy on Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Government’s assessment last week identified instabilities in the western Balkans as

“strategic risks to the UK and our NATO allies … In Bosnia and Herzegovina … we have seen attempts to undermine the Dayton settlement that has maintained peace since the mid-1990s”.

These are serious conclusions and they deserve a serious response.

For over 30 years, the Dayton peace agreement sustained peace in Bosnia. It did so because it rested on strong local institutions and a broadly united international commitment to defend them and the sovereignty of the country. By 2010, the assumption was that the constitutional settlement had become sufficiently entrenched that European integration would drive reform, and the international consensus underpinning the post-Dayton order would endure.

Today, those assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. Bosnia and Herzegovina faces its most serious political crisis since 1995. What began as questions of constitutional authority have become questions of sovereignty. Backed by the Kremlin, the leadership of the Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska has embarked on a project of dismantling state institutions and eroding the country’s territorial integrity. The aspiration, stated with increasing openness, is the dissolution of the Bosnian state and the realisation of the project of greater Serbia, just as in 1992.

That would not merely destroy a country but destabilise an entire neighbourhood, pulling a thread that could unravel wider European security. The consequences for the people of Bosnia, of every ethnicity and community, would be devastating. The memories of the 1990s are sadly still alive. Let us be clear: this is not a project pursued in the interests of ordinary Bosnian Serb citizens, who are among the poorest in Europe. They deserve better than to be instrumentalised and used by a political elite who would sacrifice their futures and the futures of their children on the altar of nationalist ideology and personal ambition and gain.

The question today is whether the international framework that preserved peace for 30 years remains capable of responding effectively. Last week, the Peace Implementation Council, of which the United Kingdom is a founding member, met in Sarajevo to agree a successor to the outgoing high representative. It was unable to do so. That matters profoundly because the office of high representative remains the principal international mechanism for safeguarding the peace agreement.

At the moment of Bosnia’s most serious challenge in a generation, the states responsible for upholding the peace publicly demonstrated that they could not agree on the future leadership of its most important international institution. The United States, our closest ally, sought to install a preferred candidate, as though the high representative was a political appointment rather than an independent office. That is precisely the wrong approach. The high representative must be chosen on the basis of independence, credibility and unconditional readiness to uphold the Dayton peace accords impartially, not because they are acceptable to one capital or another, including this one. The office derives its authority from the Dayton agreement, not from the preference of any individual state.

This failure reflects broader and more troubling changes. Last year, the United States lifted sanctions on 48 Republika Srpska individuals and entities, the very people whom President Trump or his Administration described as having a corrupt, destabilising political agenda and enriching themselves and their associates at public expense, including denial of genocide. I do not speculate on the motives behind that decision. There are many views in Washington, but the significance extends well beyond the sanctions themselves. The United States appears to be taking a wrecking ball to the architecture of its own successful policy.

Britain cannot determine American policy, but neither can we treat these as inconsequential differences. They go to the very heart of European security. Nor can we ignore the broader regional and geopolitical picture. Regrettably, Serbia continues to provide political and material support to the Srpska leadership. China is actively converting its economic relationship with Belgrade into military co-operation, gaining strategic leverage in the heart of Europe. Even Croatia, a member of both NATO and the European Union, often meddles in Bosnia’s constitutional arrangements.

Above all, it is Russia that is working systematically to fracture Bosnia and the wider western Balkans as part of its sustained campaign to weaken Euro-Atlantic institutions. It is recruiting fighters to fight against Ukraine and using disinformation, not because it cares one iota about the citizens living there but because division is its instrument of power and control. I would not be shocked if, in the years ahead, a new wall were to divide Europe; it would run through Bosnia, a country almost entirely bordering EU and NATO member states. That is the strategic absurdity we are sleepwalking towards.

The Government have spoken at length about their commitment to deepen defence co-operation with the European Union and greater European responsibility. These are serious and welcome ambitions. We must be self-reliant. This will make us stronger and would respond to the Washington push, but ambitions require practical foundations.

EUFOR Operation Althea, working with NATO, remains the principal international military mission responsible for maintaining stability in Bosnia. Yet Britain left after Brexit. We currently lack the framework that would permit participation in that mission, should circumstances require. If instability in the western Balkans is genuinely a strategic interest of the United Kingdom, as the Government rightly say, and if stronger UK-EU defence co-operation is a genuine priority, the absence of such a framework is difficult to reconcile with either that risk assessment or those stated priorities.

I have several questions for the Minister. First, what specific actions—not statements but actions—will follow from the Government’s identification of the western Balkans as a strategic risk to the United Kingdom and our NATO allies? Secondly, do the Government regard the failure to agree the high representative as a serious sign of weakening international cohesion, and what are they actively doing to break the deadlock? Will the next PIC be held at ministerial level? Thirdly, does the United Kingdom have plans to negotiate a third-country participation agreement for EUFOR Operation Althea? If not, why not? Fourthly, do the Government believe the international framework protecting Bosnia and Herzegovina and its territorial integrity is as credible today as it was 10 or 20 years ago? If not, will they raise with NATO allies the case for a more explicit security guarantee?

Finally, Britain helped to end the war in Bosnia. British soldiers served there and some never came back. British diplomats helped shape the settlement. Bosnia is not a peripheral concern. It sits at the intersection of European security, transatlantic relations and the credibility of the international agreements upon which peace itself depends. The Government have correctly identified the risks. The question before us, which I hope the Minister will answer, is whether Britain’s response matches its own assessment. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.