Balkans: Euro-Atlantic Enlargement

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I thank my noble friend for her question, and obviously her experience in this region is to be noted. The Government remain committed to the security and stability of the western Balkans region. We uphold the commitments made in the Dayton peace agreement and in the United Nations Security Council. The priority for all the countries in the western Balkans, including Kosovo, is to make progress towards their respective Euro-Atlantic aspirations. The Government believe in particular that the region needs to do more to uphold the status of Bosnia, and to normalise relations between Serbia and Kosovo on the basis of recognition of independent sovereign nations within their current borders. We invite Russia to engage constructively on this agenda, as she has from time to time in the past, but we and our NATO and EU allies and partners are clear that we shall continue to resist and overcome current and future Russian attempts to destabilise the region.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, the catalogue provided by the noble Baroness of Russian attempts to destabilise the western Balkans is both serious and dangerous. Instability is deepening in the western Balkans again, and there are many who should know better who are now calling again for a “Greater Serbia” and a “Greater Croatia”. Do the Government agree that at this point it is essential and urgent that the European Union should now state explicitly—as, indeed, it has not yet provided an explicit statement—that it is not prepared to countenance any change of borders in the western Balkans because it sees this properly as an essential prelude to further bloodshed?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. One thing I have worked out is that there are giants in certain subjects dotted around this place, and the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, is one on this subject. The Government share his concerns and we remain actively engaged, and do not wish to see any changes to borders within the region.