Bosnia-Herzegovina

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise. I am speaking in the gap—but my apology concerns being two minutes late at the start of this debate. I thank everybody who was consulted for allowing me nevertheless to speak a few words. I shall not take too long.

I agree with all the remarks about urgency—but urgency to do what? I tend to be 100% in the line of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I remember, in the period before the tragedy, that I was in a meeting at Wilton Park—he may have been there himself—where all the parties were looking so dismayed that nothing could be done. But in the corridors they said, “Bring back Tito; all is forgiven”. One thing about Tito, of course, although it is not exactly news to say this, is that he was not a tool of Moscow. The idea that someone is the tool of somebody else has to be kept out. I am not even sure about how we play the card vis-à-vis NATO, the EU and so on, but it is very important that this is decided in a west Balkans context, even though the politics is not clean politics. Greater Albania could be given as an example vis-à-vis Kosovo, and Belgrade sees some of those things in those terms.

What can one do without giving way to blackmailing Belgrade? Obviously, we do not know whether there is a settled view in Belgrade about a European Union accession initiative, but it is the only card game in town, even though this may be exactly the wrong moment to take practical action. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that. We cannot say, “This is what we would do in theory, but this is what we can’t do in practice”.

Some of us have been able to put ourselves in the shoes of Princip, who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand—but people did not think it was a big deal at the time. We do not know what people in Moscow think would be a useful tool—along with other things going on in Moscow at the moment. We have to see how these great powers can be engaged without them playing the game of proxy. I do not know the answers but those are some of the questions.